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CHARACTER 


AMD 


CHARACTERISTIC    MEN. 


EDWIN    P.  WHIPPLE. 


^  LI  BRA  U  Y 

UNIVKUSITV   OF 


\ 


CALlFOlilvlA. 


BOSTON:^ 
JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  AND   COMPANY, 

Late  Tickkok  &  Fields,  and  Fields,  Osgooq,  &  Co. 
187  I. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  186(J,  by 

TICKNOR     AND     FIELDS, 

in  the  Clerk*g  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetta 


Univsrsity  Pxbss  :  Welch,  Bigklow,  &  Co^ 
Cambridgb. 


gfFSI, 


TO 

THE   MEMORY 

OF 

THOMAS    STARR    KING, 

WSil%  Volume 

IS   AFFECTIONATELY    DEDICATED!. 


PREFACE. 


The  essays  in  the  present  volume  were  writ- 
ten at  various  times,  and  without  any  view  to 
their  connected  publication ;  but  they  all  more 
or  less  illustrate  one  idea  of  the  nature,  growth, 
and  influence  of  character.  With  the  exception 
of  those  on  Thackeray,  Hawthorne,  and  Agassiz, 
they  were  all  originally  delivered  as  lectures  or 
addresses,  and  the  style  doubtless  exhibits  that 
perpetual  scepticism  as  to  the  patience  of  au- 
diences which  torments  the  lecturer  during  the 
brief  hour  in  which  he  attempts  to  hold  their 
attention.  The  first  six  of  the  essays,  with  the 
exception  of  that  on  Intellectual  Character,  were 
published  in  Harper's  Magazine,  between  July 
and  November,  1857,  and  the  paper  on  Agassiz 
was  also  contributed  to  that  periodical.  As  most 
of  the  essays  were  written  before  the  Rebellion, 


VI  PREFACE. 

some  of  the  opinions  expressed  in  them  look  an- 
tiquated as  seen  in  the  light  of  recent  events. 
This  is  particularly  true  of  the  discourse  on  the 
American  Mind,  which  is  only  now  reprinted  be- 
cause it  contains  some  remarks  on  national  char- 
acter that  could  not  well  be  omitted. 

Boston,  July,  1866. 


CONTENTS. 

L  Character  .       .        .       •       .       .       .  i 

n.  Eccentric  Character   .       .       .       •  35 

m.  Intellectual  Character         .        •        •66 

IV.  Heroic  Character         .        •        .        •  96 

V.  The  American  Mind  .        .  .129 

VI.  The  English  Mind         .        .        .        ,  165 

VII.  Thackeray 197^ 

Vm.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne         •       .       .  218 

IX.  Edward  Everett       .....  243 

X.  Thomas  Starr  Ejng      ....  253 

XI.  Agassiz 266 

Xn.  Washington  and  the  Principles  of  the 

Kevolution 293 


(    L  1  B  H  iv  It  I      I 

UNIVKKSl  TV   OK  J 

[  CALIFORNIA  J 


CHARACTER. 

IT  is  impossible  to  cast  the  most  superficial  glance 
over  the  community,  without  being  impressed  by 
the  predominance  of  associated  over  individual  action, 
and  of  people  over  persons.  Few  dare  to  announce  un- 
welcome truth,  or  even  to  defend  enthusiastic  error, 
without  being  backed  by  some  sect,  party,  association, 
or  clique;  and,  thus  sustained,  the  effort  is  in  danger 
of  subsiding  from  a  duty  into  a  pleasure  or  passion.  It 
might  be  supposed  that  this  companionable  thinking, — 
this  moral  or  rehgious  power  owned  in  joint  stock, — 
would  at  least  operate  against  egotism  and  the  vices  of 
capricious  individualism ;  but,  practically,  it  is  apt  to 
result  in  self-admiration  through  mutual  admiration; 
to  pamper  personal  pride  without  always  developing  a 
personality  to  be  proud  of;  and  to  raise  the  market 
price  of  mediocrity  by  making  genius  and  heroism 
small  and  cheap.  Formerly,  to  attack  a  community 
intrenched  in  laws,  customs,  institutions,  and  beliefs,  re- 
quired dauntless  courage ;  a  soul  sublimed  by  an  idea 
1  ▲ 


2  CHARACTER. 

above  the  region  of  vanity  and  conceit;  a  character 
resolutely  facing  responsibilities  it  clearly  realized  ;  and 
especially  a  penetrating  vision  into  the  spirit  and  heart 
of  the  objects  assailed.  This  last  characteristic  is  in- 
sisted upon  by  all  the  authorities.  "There  is  nothing 
so  terrible  as  activity  without  insight,"  says  Goethe. 
"  I  would  open  every  one  of  Argus's  hundred  eyes  be- 
fore I  used  one  of  Briareus*s  hundred  hands,"  says 
Lord  Bacon.  "Look  before  you  leap,"  says  John 
Smith,  all  over  the  world.  But  it  is  too  much  the 
mistake  of  many  hopeful  people  of  our  day  to  consider 
organized  institutions,  which  had  their  origin  in  the 
vice^  or  necessities  of  human  nature,  to  possess  no 
authority  over  the  understanding  if  they  happen  to 
contradict  certain  abstract  truisms,  and  a  still  greater 
mistake  to  suppose  that  these  institutions  will  yield  to  a 
proclamation  of  opinions  or  a  bombardment  of  words. 

It  being  then  evident  that  institutions  can  be  success- 
fully attacked  only  by  forces  kindred  in  nature  to  those 
by  which  they  were  originally  organized,  the  question 
arises,  What  is  it  that  really  forms  and  reforms  insti- 
tutions, communicates  life  and  movement  to  society, 
and  embodies  thoughts  in  substantial  facts?  The  an- 
swer is,  in  one  word.  Character ;  and  this  conducts  us 
at  once  beneath  the  sphere  of  associated  and  merely 
mechanical  contrivances  into  the  region  of  personal  and 


CHARACTER.  .  3 

Vital  forces.  It  is  character  which  gives  authority  to 
opinions,  puts  virile  meaning  into  words,  and  burns  its 
way  through  impediments  insurmountable  to  the  large 
in  brain  who  are  weak  in  heart ;  for  character  indicates 
the  degree  in  which  a  man  possesses  creative  spiritual 
energy ;  is  the  exact  measure  of  his  real  ability ;  is,  in 
short,  the  expression,  and  the  only  expression,  of  the 
man,  —  the  person.  His  understanding  and  sensibility 
may  play  with  thoughts  and  coquet  with  sentiments, 
and  his  conscience  flirt  with  beautiful  ideals  of  good- 
ness, and  this  amateur  trifling  he  may  call  by  some  fine 
name  or  other;  but  it  is  the  centre  and  heart  of  his 
being,  the  source  whence  spring  living  ideas  and  living 
deeds,  which  ever  determines  his  place  when  we  esti- 
mate him  as  a  power.  The  great  danger  of  the  con- 
servative is  his  temptation  to  surrender  character  and 
trust  in  habits ;  the  great  danger  of  the  radical  is  his 
temptation  to  discard  habits  without  forming  character. 
One  is  liable  to  mental  apathy,  the  other  to  mental  an- 
archy; and  apathy  and  anarchy  are  equally  destitute 
of  causative  force  and  essential  individuality. 

As  character  is  thus  the  expression  of  no  particular 
quality  or  faculty,  but  of  a  whole  nature,  it  reveals,  of 
course,  a  man's  imperfections  in  revealing  his  greatness. 
He  is  nothing  unless  he  acts ;  and,  as  in  every  vital 
thought  and  deed  character  appears,  his  acts  must  par 


4  CHARACTER, 

take  of  his  infirmities,  and  the  mental  and  moral  life 
communicated  in  them  be  more  or  less  diseased.  As 
he  never  acts  from  opinions  or  propositions,  his  nature 
cannot  be  hidden  behind  such  thin  disguises,  the  fatal 
evidence  against  him  being  in  the  deed  itself.  If  there 
be  sensuality,  or  malignity,  or  misanthropy  in  him,  it 
will  come  out  in  his  actions,  though  his  tongue  drop 
purity  and  philanthropy  in  every  w^ord.  Probably 
more  hatred,  licentiousness,  and  essential  impiety  are 
thus  communicated  through  the  phraseology  and  con- 
tortions of  their  opposites,  than  in  those  of  vice  itself. 
Moral  life  is  no  creation  of  moral  phrases.  The  words 
that  are  truly  vital  powers  for  good  or  evil  are  only 
those  which,  as  Pindar  says,  "  the  tongue  draws  up 
from  the  deep  heart." 

Now,  as  men  necessarily  communicate  themselves 
when  they  produce  from  their  vital  activity,  it  follows 
that  their  productions  will  never  square  with  the  ab- 
stract opinions  of  the  understanding,  but  present  a  con- 
crete, organic  whole,  compounded  of  truth  and  error, 
evil  and  good,  exactly  answering  to  the  natures  whence 
they  proceed.  This  actual  process  of  creation  we  are 
prone  to  ignore  or  overlook,  and  to  criticise  institutions 
as  Eymer  and  Dennis  criticised  poems,  that  is,  as 
though  they  were  the  manufactures  of  mental  and 
moral  machines,  working  on  abstract  principles ;  where^ 


CHARACTER.  6 

as  creation  on  such  a  method  is  impossible,  and  we  are 
compelled  to  choose  between  imperfect  organisms  and 
nothing.  That  this  imperfection  is  not  confined  to 
jurists  and  legislators  is  sufficiently  manifest  v^hen 
the  vehement  and  opinionated  social  critic  undertakes 
the  work  of  demolition  and  reconstruction,  and  all  the 
vices  peculiar  to  his  own  nature,  such  os  his  intolerance 
of  facts  and  disregard  of  the  rights  and  feelings  of  oth- 
ers, have  an  opportunity  of  displaying  themselves.  His 
talk  is  fine,  and  his  theories  do  him  honor ;  but  when 
he  comes  to  act  as  a  man,  when  he  comes  to  exhibit 
what  he  is  as  well  as  what  he  thinks,  it  is  too  com- 
monly found  that  four  months  of  the  rule  of  so-called 
philosophers  and  philanthropists  are  enough  to  make 
common  men  sigh  for  their  old  Bourbons  and  Bo 
napartes.  Robespierre,  anarchist  and  philanthropist, 
Frederick  of  Prussia,  despot  and  philosopher,  were 
both  bitter  and  vitriolic  natures,  yet  both,  in  their 
youth,  exceeded  Exeter  Hall  itself  in  their  professions 
of  universal  beneficence,  and  evinced,  in  their  rants,  not 
hypocrisy,  but  self-delusion.  Frederick  indeed  wrote 
early  in  life  a  treatise  called  "  The  Anti-Machiavel, 
which  was,"  says  his  biographer,  "an  edifying  homily 
against  rapacity,  perfidy,  arbitrary  government,  unjust 
war ;  in  short,  against  almost  everything  for  which  its 
author  is  now  remembered  among  men.*' 


6  CHARACTEB. 

Thus  to  the  pride  of  reason  and  vanity  of  opinion 
character  interposes  its  iron  limitations,  declaring  war 
against  all  forms  and  modes  of  pretension,  and  affording 
the  right  measure  of  the  wisdom  and  folly,  the  right- 
eousness and  the  wickedness,  substantially  existing  in 
persons  and  in  communities  of  persons.  Let  us  now 
consider  this  power  in  some  of  the  varieties  of  its  man- 
ifestation, observing  the  law  of  its  growth  and  influ- 
ence and  the  conditions  of  its  success.  Our  purpose 
will  rather  be  to  indicate  its  radical  nature  than  to 
treat  of  those  superficial  peculiarities  which  many  deem 
to  be  its  essential  elements. 

The  question  has  been  often  raised,  whether  charac- 
ter be  the  creation  of  circumstances,  or  circumstances 
the  creation  of  character.  Now,  to  assert  that  circum- 
stances create  character  is  to  eliminate  from  character 
that  vital  causative  energy  which  is  its  essential  char- 
acteristic; and  to  assert  that  circumstances  are  the 
creation  of  character,  is  to  endow  character  with  the 
power  not  only  to  create,  but  to  furnish  the  materials 
of  creation.  The  result  of  both  processes  would  not 
be  character,  but  caricature.  The  truth  seems  to  be, 
that  circumstances  are  the  nutriment  of  character,  the 
food  which  it  converts  into  blood ;  and  this  process  of 
assimilation  presupposes  individual  power  to  act  upon 
circumstances.     Goethe  says,  in  reference  to  his  own 


CHARACTER.  7 

mental  growth  and  productiveness,  "  Every  one  of  my 
writings  has  been  furnished  to  me  by  a  thousand  differ- 
ent persons,  a  thousand  different  things.  The  learned 
and  the  ignorant,  the  wise  and  the  foolish,  infancy  and 
age,  have  come  in  turn  j—  generally  without  the  least 
suspicion  of  it  —  to  bring  me  the  offering  of  their 
thoughts,  their  faculties,  their  experience.  Often  they 
have  «owed  the  harvest  I  have  reaped.  My  work  is 
that  of  an  aggregate  of  beings  taken  from  the  whole  of 
nature ;  it  bears  the  name  of  Goethe."  Yes,  it  bears 
the  name  of  Goethe,  because  Goethe  assimilated  all 
this  knowledge  and  all  this  aggregate  of  beings  into 
Goethe,  —  broadening,  enriching,  and  deepening  his  in- 
dividuality, but  not  annihilating  it ;  so  that  his  charac- 
ter became  as  comprehensive  as  his  experience. 

Indeed,  in  all  the  departments  of  life,  meditative  and 
practical,  success  thus  depends  on  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge, proceeding  from  a  complete  assimilation,  of  all 
the  circumstances  connected  with  each  department, — 
the  man  standing  for  the  thing,  having  mastered  and, 
as  it  were,  consumed  it,  so  that  all  its  forces  are  in 
himself  as  personal  power  and  personal  intelligence. 
The  true  merchant,  the  true  statesman,  the  true  mili- 
tary commander,  the  true  artist,  becomes  a  man  of 
character  only  when  he  "puts  on,"  and  identifies  him- 
self ^ith,   his  particular  profession   or  art.      Balzac 


8  CHARACTER, 

thought  he  could  not  describe  a  landscape  until  he  had 
turned  himself  for  the  moment  into  trees,  and  grass, 
and  fountains,  and  stars,  and  effects  of  sunlight,  and 
thus  entered  into  the  heart  and  life  of  the  objects  he 
ached  to  reproduce.  Nelson  realized  with  such  inten- 
sity the  inmost  secrets  of  his  profession,  that  experience 
and  study  had  in  him  been  converted  into  intuition,  so 
that  he  could  meet  unexpected  contingencies  with  in- 
stinctive expedients.  If  he  failed,  through  lack  of 
means,  to  snatch  all  the  possible  results  of  victory,  his 
unrealized  conception  tortured  him  more  than  a  sabre 
cut  or  a  shattered  limb.  At  the  Battle  of  the  Nile 
many  French  ships  escaped  because  he  had  no  frigates 
to  pursue  them.  In  his  despatches  he  writes :  "  Should 
I  die  this  moment,  *  want  of  frigates  *  would  be  found 
written  on  my  heart ! " 

With  this  view  of  character  as  the  embodiment  of 
things  in  persons,  it  is  obviously  limited  in  its  sphere 
to  the  facts  and  laws  it  has  made  its  own,  and  out  of 
that  sphere  is  comparatively  feeble.  Thus,  many  able 
lawyers  and  generals  have  been  blunderers  as  states- 
men ;  and  one  always  shudders  for  the  health  of  the 
community  when  the  name  of  a  statesman  or  clergy- 
man —  properly  authoritative  in  his  special  department 
—  is  employed  to  recommend  some  universal  panacea, 
or  some  aqueous  establishment  for  washing  away  the 


CHARACTER.  9 

diseases  of  the  world.  Character  speaks  with  author- 
ity only  of  those  matters  it  has  realized,  ^nd  in  respect 
to  them  its  dogmatisms  are  reasons  and  its  opinions 
are  judgments.  When  Mr.  Webster,  in  attacking  a 
legal  proposition  of  an  opponent  at  the  bar,  was  re- 
minded that  he  was  assailing  a  dictum  of  Lord  Cam- 
den, he  turned  to  the  Court,  and  after  paying  a  tribute 
to  Camden's  greatness  as  a  jurist,  simply  added,  "  But, 
may  it  please  your  Honor,  /  differ  from  Lord  Cam- 
den." It  is  evident  that  such  self-assertion  would  have 
been  ridiculous  had  not  the  character  of  the  man  re- 
lieved it  from  all  essential  pretension ;  but  if  the  case 
had  been  one  of  surgery  or  theology,  and  Mr.  Webster 
had  emphasized  his  "  ego  "  in  a  difference  with  Sir  Ast- 
ley  Cooper  or  Hooker,  the  intrusion  of  his  "  I "  would 
have  been  an  impertinence  which  his  reputation  as  a 
statesman  or  lawyer  could  not  have  shielded  from  con- 
tempt. Indeed,  injustice  is  often  done  to  the  real  mer- 
its of  eminent  men  when  they  get  enticed  out  of  their 
strongholds  of  character,  and  venture  into  unaccus- 
tomed fields  of  exertion,  where  their  incapacity  is  soon 
detected.  Macaulay  has  vividly  shown  how  Hastings, 
the  most  vigorous  and  skilful  of  English  statesmen  in 
India,  blundered  the  moment  he  applied  the  experience 
he  had  acquired  in  Bengal  to  English  politics ;  and  that 
perfection  in  one  profession  does  not  imply  even  com- 
1* 


10  CHARACTER. 

mon  judgment  outside  of  it,  was  painfully  demonstrated 
a  few  years  ago,  in  the  case  of  an  accomplished  Amer- 
ican general,  among  whose  splendid  talents  writing 
English  does  not  appear  to  be  one.  When,  therefore, 
not  content  to  leave  his  prodigies  of  strategy  and  tac- 
tics to  speak  for  themselves,  he  invaded  the  domain 
of  rhetoric,  and  crossed  pens  with  Secretary  Marcy, 
people  began  to  imagine,  as  verbs  went  shrieking  about 
after  nouns,  and  relative  pronouns  could  find  no  rela- 
tions, that  the  great  general  had  no  character  at  all. 

But  confine  a  characteristic  man  to  the  matters  he 
has  really  mastered,  and  there  is  in  him  no  blundering, 
no  indecision,  no  uncertainty,  but  a  straightforward, 
decisive  activity,  sure  as  insight  and  rapid  as  instinct. 
You  cannot  impose  upon  him  by  nonsense  of  any  kind, 
however  prettily  you  may  bedizen  it  in  inapplicable 
eloquence.  Thus  Jeremiah  Mason  —  a  man  who  was 
not  so  much  a  lawyer  as  he  was  law  embodied  —  was 
once  engaged  to  defend  a  clergyman  accused  of  a 
capital  crime,  and  was  repeatedly  bothered  by  the 
attempts  of  the  brethren  to  make  him  substitute  theo- 
logical for  legal  evidence.  As  he  was  making  out  his 
brief,  one  of  these  sympathizers  with  the  prisoner 
rushed  joyously  into  the  room,  with  the  remark  that 

Brother  A was  certainly  innocent,  for  an   angel 

from  heaven  had  appeared  to  him  the  night  before,  and 


CHARACTER.  11 

had  given  him  direct  assurance  of  the  fact.  **  That  is 
very  important  evidence,  indeed,"  was  the  gruff  reply 
of  Mason  ;  "  but  can  you  subpoena  that  angel  ?  "  The 
anecdote  we  mention  because  it  is  representative  ;  for 
the  philosophy  which  prompted  such  a  demand  annu- 
ally saves  thousands  of  merchants,  manufacturers,  and 
farmers  from  rushing  into  ruinous  speculations,  and 
preserves  society  itself  from  dissolving  into  a  mere 
anarchy  of  fanaticisms.  The  resistance  doubtless 
comes,  in  many  cases,  from  stupidity ;  but  then  stu- 
pidity is  a  great  conservative  power,  especially  in  those 
periods  of  moral  flippancy  and  benevolent  persiflage 
when  it  rains  invitations  to  square  the  circle,  to  under- 
take voyages  to  the  moon,  and  to  peril  the  existence  of 
solid  realities  on  the  hope  of  establishing  a  millennium 
on  their  ruins. 

As  the  perfection  of  character  depends  on  a  man's 
embodying  the  facts  and  laws  of  his  profession  to  such 
a  degree  of  intensity  that  power  and  intelligence  are 
combined  in  his  activity,  it  is  evident  that  mere  unas- 
similated  knowledge  —  knowledge  that  does  not  form 
part  of  the  mind,  but  is  attached  to  it  —  will  often 
blunder  as  badly  as  ignorance  itself.  Thus  Marshal 
Berthier  enjoyed  for  some  time  the  reputation  of  plan- 
ning Napoleon's  battles,  and  of  being  a  better  general 
than  his  master,  —  an  impression  which  his  own  conceit 


1 2  CHARACTER. 

doubtless  readily  indorsed ;  but  the  illusion  was  dis- 
pelled in  the  campaign  of  1809,  when  Napoleon  sent 
him  on  in  advance  to  assume  the  command.  It  took 
him  but  a  marvellously  short  time  to  bring  the  army  to 
the  brink  of  destruction,  and  his  incompetency  was  so 
glaring  that  ro'iie  of  the  marshals  mistook  it  for  treach- 
ery. Instead  of  concentrating  the  forces,  he  dispersed 
them  over  a  field  of  operations  forty  leagues  in  extent, 
and  exposed  them  to  the  danger  of  being  destroyed  in 
detail,  thinking  all  the  while  that  he  was  exhibiting 
singular  depth  of  military  genius ;  when,  in  fact,  it  was 
only  the  opportune  arrival  of  Napoleon,  and  his  fierce, 
swift  orders  for  immediate  concentration,  that  saved 
the  army  from  disgraceful  dispersion  and  defeat, — 
an  army  which,  under  Napoleon,  soon  occupied  Vienna, 
and  eventually  brought  the  campaign  to  a  victorious 
conclusion  at  Wagram. 

It  is,  however,  the  misfortune  of  nations  that  such 
men  as  Berthier  are  not  always  tested  by  events,  and 
the  limitations  of  their  capacity  plainly  revealed. 
Besides,  it  must  be  admitted  that,  in  practical  politics, 
circumstances  sometimes  lift  into  power  small-minded 
natures,  who  are  exactly  level  to  the  prejudices  of  their 
time,  and  thus  make  themselves  indispensable  to  it. 
Mr.  Addington,  by  the  grace  of  intolerance  made  for  a 
short  period  Prime  Minister  of  England,  —  a  man  of 


CHARACTER.  13 

great  force  of  self-consequence,  and  great  variety  of 
demerit,  —  was  one  of  these  fortunate  echoes  of  char- 
acter ;  and  as  his  littleness  answered  admirably  to  all 
that  was  little  in  the  nation,  he  was,  during  his  whole 
life,  an  important  element  of  party  power.  Canning 
used  despairingly  to  say  of  him,  that  "  he  was  like  the  '^ 
small-pox,  —  every  administration  had  to  take  him 
oncer  No  party  ever  succeeded  that  did  not  thus 
represent  the  public  nonsense  as  well  as  the  public 
sense ;  and  happy  is  that  body  of  politicians  where  one 
of  the  members  relieves  his  associates  of  all  fear  for 
their  safety,  not  by  his  vigor  or  sagacity  in  administra- 
tion, but  by  his  being  one  in  whom  the  public  nonsense 
knows  it  can  confide.  Indeed,  Sydney  Smith  declares 
that  every  statesman  who  is  troubled  by  a  rush  of  ideas 
to  the  head  should  have  his  foolometer  ever  by  his  ^ 
side,  to  warn  him  against  offending  or  outstriding  pub- 
lic opinion.  This  foolometer  is  as  necessary  to  des- 
potic as  to  liberal  governments ;  for  one  great  secret 
of  the  art  of  politics  all  over  the  world  is,  never  to 
push  evil  or  beneficent  measures  to  that  point  where  ^ , 
resistance  commences  on  the  part  of  the  governed. 

Character,  in  its  intrinsic  nature,  being  thus  the 
embodiment  of  things  in  persons,  the  quality  which 
most  distinguishes  men  of  character  from  men  of  pas- 
sions and  opinions  is  Persistency,  tenacity  of  hold  upon 


14  CHARACTER. 

their  work,  and  power  to  continue  in  it.  This  quality 
13  the  measure  of  the  force  inherent  in  character,  and 
is  the  secret  of  the  confidence  men  place  in  it,  — 
soldiers  in  generals,  parties  in  leaders,  people  in 
statesmen.  Indeed,  if  we  sharply  scrutinize  the  lives 
of  persons  eminent  in  any  department  of  action  or 
meditation,  we  shall  find  that  it  is  not  so  much  bril- 
liancy and  fertility  as  constancy  and  continuousness 
of  effort  which  make  a  man  great.  This  is  as  true  of 
Kepler  and  Newton  as  of  Hannibal  and  Caesar;  of 
Shakespeare  and  Scott  as  of  Howard  and  Clarkson. 
The  heads  of  such  men  are  not  merely  filled  with 
ideas,  purposes,  and  plans,  but  the  primary  character- 
istic of  their  natures  and  inmost  secret  of  their  success 
is  this :  that  labor  cannot  weary,  nor  obstacles  discour- 
age, nor  drudgery  disgust  them.  The  universal  line 
of  distinction  between  the  strong  and  the  weak  is,  that 
one  persists  ;  the  other  hesitates,  falters,  trifles,  and  at 
last  collapses  or  "  caves  in." 

This  principle  obtains  in  every  department  of  affairs 
and  every  province  of  thought.  Even  in  social  life, 
it  is  persistency  which  attracts  confidence  more  than 
talents  and  accomplishments.  Lord  Macaulay  was  the 
most  brilliant,  rapid,  and  victorious  of  talkers,  —  inex- 
haustible in  words  and  in  matter,  —  so  endless,  indeed, 
that  on  those  rare  occasions  when  he  allowed  others  to 


CHARACTER.  16 

put  in  an  occasional  word,  lie  was  hit  by  Sydney 
Smith's  immortal  epigram,  complimenting  his  "  flashes 
of  silence  " ;  but  in  character,  and  in  the  influence  that 
radiates  from  character,  he  was  probably  inferior  to  his 
taciturn  father,  Zachary  Macaulay,  who,  with  an  iron 
grasp  of  an  unpopular  cause,  and  a  soul  which  was  felt 
as  inspiration  in  whatever  company  he  appeared,  had 
still  hardly  a  word  to  spare.  The  son  conversed,  but 
'the  mere  presence  of  the  father  was  conversation. 
The  son  excited  admiration  by  what  he  said,  the  father 
wielded  power  and  enforced  respect  and  became  the 
object  to  which  the  conversation  of  the  circle  referred, 
in  virtue  of  what  he  was,  and  of  what  everybody  knew 
he  would  persist  in  being. 

In  politics,  again,  no  mere  largeness  of  comprehen 
sion  or  loftiness  of  principle  will  compensate  for  a  lack 
of  persistency  to  bear,  with  a  mind  ever  fresh  and  a 
purpose  ever  fixed,  all  the  toil,  dulness,  fret,  and  dis- 
appointment of  the  business ;  and  this  is  perhaps  the 
reason  that,  in  politics,  the  perseverance  of  the  sinners 
makes  us  blush  so  often  for  the  pusillanimity  of  the 
saints.  So,  in  wai,  mere  courage  and  military  talent 
are  not  always  sufRcient  to  make  a  great  military 
commander.  Thus  Peterborough  is,  in  comparison 
with  Marlborough,  hardly  known  as  a  general;  yet 
Peterborough,  by  his   skilful   and   splendid   audacity, 


16  CHARACTER. 

gained  victories  which  Marlborough  might  have  been 
proud  to  claim.  The  difficulty  with  Peterborough  was, 
that  he  could  not  endure  being  bored ;  while  Marl- 
borough's endurance  of  bores  was  quite  as  marvellous 
as  the  military  genius  by  which  he  won  every  battle  he 
fought  and  took  every  place  he  besieged.  If  Peter- 
borough was  prevented  by  the  caution  of  his  govern- 
ment or  his  allies  from  seizing  an  occasion  for  a  great 
exploit,  he  resigned  his  command  in  a  pet ;  but  Marl- 
borough patiently  submitted  to  be  robbed  by  the 
timidity  of  his  allies  of  opportunities  for  victories 
greater  even  than  those  he  achieved,  and  persisted,  in 
spite  of  irritations  which  would  have  crazed  a  more 
sensitive  spirit,  until  the  object  of  the  heterogeneous 
coalition  which  his  genius  welded  together  had  been 
attained. 

Again,  in  the  conduct  of  social  and  moral  reforms, 
persistency  is  the  test  by  which  we  discriminate  men 
of  moral  opinions  from  men  in  whom  moral  opinions 
have  been  deepened  into  moral  ideas  and  consolidated 
in  moral  character.  To  be  sure,  a  man  may,  without 
character,  seem  to  persist  in  the  work  of  reform, 
provided  society  will  fly  into  a  passion  with  him,  and 
thus  furnish  continual  stimulants  to  his  pride  and  pug* 
nacity ;  but  true  persistency  becomes  indispensable 
when  his  ungracious  task  is  to  overcome  that  smiling 


CHARACTER.  IT 

rndifference,  that  self- pleased  ignorance,  that  half-pity- 
ing, irritating  contempt  with  which  a  fat  and  con- 
tented community  commonly  receives  the  arguments 
and  the  invectives  of  innovation.  It  is  the  more 
important  to  insist  on  sinewy  vigor  and  constancy  in 
the  champions  of  reform,  because,  in  our  day,  the 
business  attracts  to  it  so  many  amateurs  who  mistake 
vague  intellectual  assent  to  possible  improvements  for 
the  disposition  and  genius  which  make  a  reformer; 
who  substitute  bustle  for  action,  sauciness  for  audacity, 
the  itch  of  disputation  for  the  martyr-spirit ;  and  who 
arrive  readily  at  prodigious  results  through  a  bland 
ignoring  of  all  the  gigantic  obstacles  in  the  path. 
Thus  it  would  not  be  difficult,  on  any  pleasant  morn- 
ing, to  meet  at  any  city  restaurant  some  ingenious 
gentleman  getting  what  he  is  pleased  to  call  a  living 
after  the  old  Adamic  method  of  competition,  who  will, 
over  a  cup  of  coffee,  dispose  of  concrete  America  in 
about  ten  minutes  ;  slavery  disappears  after  the  first 
sip ;  the  Constitution  goes  in  two  or  three  draughts ; 
the  Bible  vanishes  in  a  pause  of  deglutitional  satis- 
faction ;  and  a  new  order  of  society  springs  up  while, 
in  obedience  to  the  old,  he  draws  forth  a  reluctant 
shilling  to  pay  for  the  beverage.  Now,  there  is  no 
disgrace  in  lacking  insight  into  practical  life,  and  power 
to  change  it  for  the  better ;  but  certainly  these  amia- 

B 


18  CHARACTER. 

ble  deficiencies  are  as  gracefully  exhibited  in  assent- 
ing to  what  is  established  as  in  playing  at  reform, 
attitudinizing  martyrdom,  and  engaging  in  a  scheme 
to  overturn  the  whole  world  as  a  mere  relaxation 
from  the  severer  duties  of  life. 

In  passing  from  practical  life  to  literature,  we  shall 
find  that  persistency  is  the  quality  separating  first-rate 
genius  from  all  the  other  rates,  —  proving,  as  it  does, 
that  the  author  mentally  and  morally  lives  in  the  re- 
gion of  thought  and  emotion  about  which  he  writes; 
accepts  the  drudgery  of  composition  as  a  path  to  the 
object  he  desires  to  master ;  and  is  too  much  en- 
raptured with  the  beautiful  vision  before  his  eyes  to 
weary  of  labor  in  its  realization.  In  the  creations  of 
such  men  there  is  neither  languor  nor  strain,  but  a 
"  familiar  grasp  of  things  Divine."  They  are  easily 
to  be  distinguished  from  less  bountifully  endowed  na- 
tures and  less  raised  imaginations.  Thus  Tennyson, 
as  a  man,  is  evidently  not  on  a  level  with  his  works. 
He  is  rather  a  writer  of  poems  than,  like  Wordsworth, 
essentially  a  poet ;  and,  accordingly,  he  only  occasion- 
ally rises  into  that  region  where  Wordsworth  per- 
manently dwells;  the  moment  he  ceases  his  intense 
scrutiny  of  his  arrested  mood,  and  aims  to  be  easy 
and  familiar,  he  but  unbends  into  laborious  flatness ; 
but  we  think  a  trained  eye  can  detect,  even   in  tho 


1/ 


CHARACTER./    if  Jir  *  ^  l2     \    /f 


seeming  commonplaces  of  Wordsworf^/  a.  ray  of  tMt/^  7'  i 


r  a  ray  ot  i 
light,  "that  never  was  on  sea  or  land,  ^ilj^^a 
nyson,  in  his  exalted  moods,  has  a  clear  vision  of  a^' /^-t 
poetical  conception,  persists  in  his  advances  to  it, 
discards  all  vagrant  thoughts,  and  subordinates  all 
minor  ones,  to  give  it  organic  expression  ;  and,  when 
he  descends  from  his  elevation,  always  brings  a  poem 
with  him,  and  not  a  mere  collection  of  poetical  lines 
and  images.  Such  a  man,  though  his  poetical  char- 
acter is  —  relatively  to  the  greatest  poets — imperfect, 
is  still,  of  course,  to  be  placed  far  above  a  mere  men- 
tal roue,  like  the  author  of  "  Festus,"  who  debauches 
in  thoughts  and  sentiments ;  pours  forth  memories 
and  fancies  with  equal  arrogance  of  originality ;  and 
having  no  definite  aim,  except  to  be  very  fine  and 
very  saucy,  produces  little  more  than  a  collection  of 
poetic  materials,  not  fused,  but  confused.  From  such 
an  anarchy  of  the  faculties  no  great  poem  was  ever 
born,  for  great  poems  are  the  creations  of  great  in- 
dividualities, —  of  that  causative  and  presiding  "  Me  " 
which  contemptuously  rejects  the  perilous  imperti- 
nences it  spontaneously  engenders,  and  drives  the 
nature  of  which  it  is  the  centre  persistingly  on  to 
the  object  that  gleams  in  the  distance.  Make  a  man 
of  Milton^s  force  and  affluence  of  imagination  half-in- 
toxicated and  half-crazy,  and  any  enterprising  booksel- 


20  CHARACTEE. 

ler  might  draw  from  the  lees  of  his  mind  a  "  Festus  " 
once  a  week,  and  each  monstrosity  would  doubtless  be 
hailed  by  some  readers,  who  think  they  have  a  taste 
for  poetry,  as  a  greater  miracle  of  genius  than  "  Par* 
adise  Lost." 

Indeed,  in  all  the  departments  of  creative  thought, 
» 
fertility  is  a  temptation  to  be  resisted  before  inven- 
tions and  discoveries  are  possible.  The  artist  who 
dallies  with  his  separate  conceptions  as  they  throng 
into  his  mind,  produces  no  statue  or  picture,  for  that 
depends  on  austerely  dismissing  the  most  enticing  im- 
ages, provided  they  do  not  serve  his  particular  purpose 
at  the  time.  The  same  truth  holds  in  the  inventive 
arts  and  in  science. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  most  common  and 
most  attractive  manifestations  of  persistency  of  char- 
acter proceed  from  those  natures  in  which  the  affec- 
tions are  dominant.  An  amazing  example,  replete 
with  that  pathos  which  "lies  too  deep  for  tears,"  is 
found  in  the  story,  chronicled  by  John  of  Brompton, 
of  the  mother  of  Thomas-k-Becket.  His  father,  Gil- 
bert-k-Becket,  was  taken  prisoner  during  one  of  the 
Crusades  by  a  Syrian  Emir,  and  held  for  a  consid- 
erable period  in  a  kind  of  honorable  captivity.  A 
daughter  of  the  Emir  saw  him  at  her  father's  table, 
heard  him  converse,  fell  in  love  with  him,  and  offered 


CHARACTER.  21 

to  arrange  the  means  by  which  both  might  escape 
to  Europe.  The  project  only  partly  succeeded ;  he 
escaped,  but  she  was  left  behind.  Soon  afterward, 
however,  she  contrived  to  elude  her  attendants,  and, 
after  many  marvellous  adventures  by  sea  and  land, 
arrived  in  England,  knowing  but  two  English  words, 
"  London  "  and  "  Gilbert."  By  constantly  repeating 
the  first,  she  was  directed  to  the  city;  and  there, 
followed  by  a  mob,  she  walked  for  months  from  street 
to  street,  crying,  as  she  went,  "  Gilbert !  Gilbert ! " 
She  at  last  came  to  the  street  in  which  her  lover 
lived.  The  mob  and  the  name  attracted  the  attention 
of  a  servant  in  the  house ;  Gilbert  recognized  her ; 
and  they  were  married.  We  doubt  if  any  poet,  if 
even  Chaucer,  ever  imaginatively  conceived  sentiment 
in  a  form  so  vital  and  primary  as  it  is  realized  in 
this  fact. 

Character,  whether  it  be  small  or  great,  evil  or 
good,  thus  always  represents  a  positive  and  persisting 
force,  and  can,  therefore,  like  other  forces,  be  calcu- 
lated^ and  the  issues  of  its  action  predicted.  There  i^ 
nothing  really  capricious  in  character  to  a  man  gifted 
with  the  true  piercing  insight  into  it;  and  Pope  was 
right  in  bringing  the  charge  of  insanity  against  Curll, 
the  bookseller,  provided  Curll  did  once  speak  politely 
to  a   customer,  and  did  07ice  refuse  two-and-sixpence 


\ 


22  CHARACTER. 

for  Sir  Richard  Blackmore's  Essays.  There  is  nothing 
more  mortifying  to  a  reader  of  mankind  than  to  be 
convicted  of  error  in  spelling  out  a  character.  We 
can  all  sympathize  with  the  story  of  that  person  who 
was  once  requested,  by  a  comparative  stranger,  to  lend 
him  ten  dollars,  to  be  returned  the  next  day  at  ten 
o'clock.  The  request  w^as  complied  with;  but  the 
lender  felt  perfectly  certain  that  the  borrower  be- 
longed to  that  large  and  constantly-increasing  class 
of  our  fellow-citizens  who  are  commonly  included  in 
the  genus  "sponge,"  and  he  therefore  bade  his  money, 
as  it  left  his  purse,  that  affectionate  farewell  which  is 
only  breathed  in  the  moment  of  permanent  separa- 
tions. Much  to  his  chagrin,  however,  the  money  was 
returned  within  a  minute  of  the  appointed  time.  A 
few  days  after,  the  same  person  requested  a  loan  of 
thirty  dollars,  promising,  as  before,  to  return  the  sum 
at  a  specified  hour.  "  No ! "  was  the  response  of  in- 
sulted and  indignant  isagacity ;  "  you  disappointed  me 
\  once,  sir,  and  I  shall  not  give  you  an  opportunity 
of  doing  it  again." 

A  commanding  mind  in  any  station  is  indicated 
by  the  accuracy  with  which  it  calculates  the  power 
and  working  intelligence  of  the  subaltern  natures  it 
uses.  In  business,  in  war,  in  government,  in  all 
matters  where  many  agents  are  employed  to  produce 


CHARACTER.  23 

a  single  result,  one  miscalculation  of  character  by  tho 
person  who  directs  the  complex  operation  is  sufficient 
to  throw  the  whole  scheme  into  confusion.  Napo- 
leon's rage  at  General  Dupont  for  capitulating  at 
Baylen  was  caused  not  more  by  the  disasters  which 
flowed  from  it  than  by  the  irritation  he  felt  in  hav- 
ing confided  to  Dupont  a  task  he  proved  incompetent 
to  perform.  Napoleon  did  not  often  thus  miscalculate 
the  capacity  of  his  instruments.  In  the  most  des- 
perate exigency  of  the  battle  of  Wagram  he  had  a 
cheerful  faith  that  he  should  in  the  end  be  victorious, 
relying,  as  he  did,  on  two  things,  —  probabilities  to 
others,  but  certainties  to  him,  —  namely,  that  the  col- 
umn led  by  Macdonald  would  pierce  the  Austrian 
centre,  and  that  the  difficult  operation  committed  to 
Davoust  would  be  carried  out,  whatever  failure  might 
have  been  possible  had  it  been  intrusted  to  any  other 
marshal.  So,  after  the  defeat  at  Essling,  the  success 
of  Napoleon's  attempt  to  withdraw  his  beaten  army 
depended  on  the  character  of  Massena,  to  whom  the 
Emperor  despatched  a  messenger,  telling  him  to  keep 
his  position  for  two  hours  longer  at  Aspern.  This 
order,  couched  in  the  form  of  a  request,  almost  re- 
quired an  impossibility ;  but  Napoleon  knew  the  in- 
domitable tenacity  of  the  man  to  whom  he  gave  it. 
The   messenger  found  Massena   seated  on  a  heap  of 


24  CHARACTER. 

rubbish,  his  eyes  bloodshot,  liis  frame  weakened  by  his 
unparalleled  exertions  during  a  contest  of  forty  hours, 
and  his  whole  appearance  indicating  a  physical  state 
better  fitting  the  hospital  than  the  field.  But  that 
steadfast  soul  seemed  altogether  unaffected  by  bodily 
prostration.  Half  dead  as  he  was  with  physical  fatigue, 
he  rose  painfully,  and  said :  "  Tell  the  Emperor  that 
I  will  hold  out  for  two  hours  —  six  —  twenty-four  — 
as  long  as  it  is  necessary  for  the  safety  of  the  army." 
And,  it  is  needless  to  add,  he  kept  his  word. 

In  politics,  where  so  many  foul  purposes  are  veiled 
in  fair  pretences,  the  calculation  of  character  is  of  pri- 
mal importance  ;  but  the  process  requires  insight  and 
foresight  beyond  what  people  commonly  exercise  in 
practical  affairs,  and  the  result  is  that  misconception  of 
men  and  events  which  has  so  often  involved  individuals 
and  governments  in  frightful  calamities.  A  true  judg- 
ment of  persons  penetrates  through  the  surface  to  the 
centre  and  substance  of  their  natures,  and  can  even 
detect  in  pretences,  which  may  deceive  the  pretenders 
themselves,  that  subtle  guile  which  corrupt  character 
always  infuses  into  the  most  celestial  professions  of 
morality  or  humanity.  In  every  French  revolution, 
for  example,  it  rains  beneficent  words  ;  but,  if  we  really 
desire  to  know  how  the  bland  and  amiable  humanities 
cf  the  movement  are  to  terminate,  we  must  give  slight 


CHARACTER.  25 

attention  to  what  the  social  and  political  leaders  say 
and  think,  except  so  far  as  in  their  sayings  and 
thoughts  there  are  occasionally  those  unconscious  es- 
capes of  character  which  shed  unwilling  light  on  what 
they  really  are  and  what  they  really  mean.  We  must 
not  hesitate  to  deny  undoubted  truths  if  they  are  pom- 
pously announced  for  the  purpose  of  serving  the  ends 
of  falsehood.  There  is  an  acrid  gentleman  of  my  ac- 
quaintance, who,  whenever  he  sees  a  quack  advertise- 
ment commencing  with  the  startling  interrogation, 
"  Is  health  desirable  ?  "  instantly  answers,  "  No ! "  be- 
cause, if  the  premise  be  once  admitted,  the  pills  follow 
in  logical  sequence  ;  and,  to  save  health  in  the  concrete, 
he  is  willing  to  deny  it  in  the  abstract.  So  it  is  well  to 
reject  even  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity,  when,  from 
the  nature  of  their  champions,  or  from  the  nature  of 
the  society  to  which  they  are  applied,  equality  means 
the  dominion  of  a  clique,  fraternity  introduces  massa- 
cre, and  liberty  ushers  in  Louis  Napoleon  and  the 
Empire.  It  was  by  looking  through  the  rodomontade 
of  such  virtue  prattlers,  and  looking  at  men  and  things 
in  their  essential  principles,  that  Bu^ke  was  enabled  to 
predict  the  issue  of  the  French  Revolution  of  1789,  and 
to  give  French  news  in  advance,  not  merely  of  the 
mail,  but  of  the  actual  occurrence  of  events.  He  read 
events  in  their  principles  and  causes. 
2 


26  CHARACTER. 

This  calculation  of  character,  this  power  of  discern- 
ing the  tendencies  and  results  of  actions  in  the  nature 
of  their  actors,  is  not  confined  to  practical  life,  but  is 
applicable  also  to  literature,  —  another  great  field  in 
which  character  is  revealed,  and  to  which  some  allusion 
has  already  been  made  in  treating  of  persistency.  As 
all  the  vital  movements  of  the  mind  are  acts,  character 
may  be  as  completely  expressed  in  the  production  of  a 
book  as  in  the  conduct  of  a  battle  or  the  establishment 
of  an  institution.  This  is  not  merely  the  case  in 
authors  like  Montaigne,  Charles  Lamb,  and  Sydney 
Smith,  whose  quaint  exposure  of  individual  peculiar- 
ities constitutes  no  small  portion  of  their  charm ;  or  in 
authors  like  Rousseau  and  Byron,  who  exultingly 
exact  attention  to  their  fooleries  and  obliquities  by 
furiously  dragging  their  readers  into  the  privacies  of 
their  moral  being ;  or  in  authors  like  Lamartine,  who 
seem  to  dwell  in  an  innocent  ignorance  or  dainty  denial 
of  all  external  objects  which  offend  their  personal 
tastes,  and  who  dissolve  their  natures  into  a  senti- 
mental mist,  which  is  diffused  over  every  province  of 
nature  and  human  life  which  they  appear  to  describe 
or  portray.  But  the  same  principle,  in  these  so  glar- 
ingly apparent,  holds  with  regard  to  writers  whose 
natures  are  not  obtruded  upon  the  attention,  but  which 
escape  in  the  general  tone  and  animating  spirit  of  their 


CHARACTER.  27 

productions.  Guizot  and  Milman  have  both  subjected 
the  original  authorities,  consulted  by  Gibbon  in  his  his- 
tory of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  to 
the  intensest  scrutiny,  to  see  if  the  historian  has  per- 
verted, falsified,  or  suppressed  facts.  Their  judgment 
is  in  favor  of  his  honesty  and  his  conscientious  re- 
search. Yet  this  by  no  means  proves  that  we  can 
obtain  through  his  history  the  real  truth  of  persons  and 
events.  The  whole  immense  tract  of  history  he  trav- 
erses he  has  thoroughly  Gihbonized;  The  qualities  of 
his  character  steal  out  in  every  paragraph ;  the  words 
are  instinct  with  Gibbon's  nature;  though  the  facts 
may  be  obtained  from  without,  the  relations  in  which 
they  are  disposed  are  communicated  from  within ;  and 
the  human  race  for  fifteen  centuries  is  made  tributary 
to  Gibbon's  thought,  wears  the  colors  and  badges  of 
Gibbon's  nature,  is  denied  the  possession  of  any  pure 
and  exalted  experiences  which  Gibbon  cannot  verify  by 
his  own;  and  the  reader,  who  is  magnetized  by  the 
historian's  genius,  rises  from  the  perusal  of  the  vast 
work,  informed  of  nothing  as  it  was  in  itself,  but  every- 
thing as  it  appeared  to  Gibbon,  and  especially  doubting 
two  things,  —  that  there  is  any  chastity  in  women,  or 
any  divine  truth  in  Christianity.  Yet  we  suppose  that 
Gibbon  would  not,  by  critics,  be  ranked  in  the  subjec- 
tive class  of  writers,  but  in  the  objective  class.     Still, 


28  CHARACTER. 

the  sensuality  and  scepticism  which  are  in  him  are  in- 
fused into  the  minds  of  his  docile  readers  with  more 
refined  force  than  Rousseau  and  Byron  ever  succeeded 
in  infusing  theirs. 

Every  author,  indeed,  who  really  influences  the  mind, 
who  plants  in  it  thoughts  and  sentiments  which  take 
root  and  grow,  communicates  his  character.  Error  and 
immorality,  —  two  words  for  one  thing,  for  error  is  the 
immorality  of  the  intellect,  and  immorality  the  error  of 
the  heart,  —  these  escape  from  him  if  they  are  in  him, 
and  pass  into  the  recipient  mind  through  subtle  avenues 
invisible  to  consciousness.  We  accordingly  sometimes 
find  open  natures,  gifted  with  more  receptivity  than 
power  of  resistance  or  self-assertion,  spotted  all  over 
with  the  sins  of  the  intellects  they  have  hospitably 
entertained,  exhibiting  evidence  of  having  stormed 
heaven  with  ^schylus,  and  anatomized  damnation 
with  Dante,  and  revelled  in  indecencies  with  Rabelais, 
and  got  drunk  with  Burns,  and  violated  all  the  austerer 
moralities  with  Moore. 

Influence  being  thus  the  communication  from  one 
mind  to  another  of  positive  individual  life,  great  na- 
tures are  apt  to  overcome  smaller  natures,  instead  of 
developing  them,  —  a  conquest  and  usurpation  as  com- 
mon in  literature  as  in  practical  affairs.  This  spiritual 
despotism,  wielded  by  the   Caesars  and  Napoleons  of 


CHARACTER.  29 

thought,  ever  implies  personal  and  concentrated  might 
in  the  despot ;  and  the  process  of  its  operation  is  very- 
different  from  those  mental  processes  in  which  some 
particular  faculty  or  sentiment  acts,  as  it  were,  on  its 
own  account,  —  processes  which  lack  all  living  force 
and  influence,  creating  nothing,  communicating  nothing, 
equally  good  for  nothing  and  bad  for  nothing.  Thus, 
by  wading  through  what  Eobert  Hall  calls  the  "  con- 
tinent of  mud "  of  a  mechanical  religious  writer,  it  is 
impossible  to  obtain  any  religious  life ;  and  diabolical 
vitality  will  perhaps  be  as  vainly  sought  in  the  volumes 
of  such  a  mechanical  reprobate  as  Wycherley.  But 
the  moment  you  place  yourself  in  relation  with  living 
minds,  you  find  Shakespeare  pouring  Norman  blood  in- 
to your  veins  and  the  feudal  system  into  your  thoughts, 
and  Milton  putting  iron  into  your  will,  and  Spinoza 
entangling  your  poor  wit  in  inextricable  meshes  of 
argumentation,  and  Goethe  suffusing  your  whole  nature 
with  a  sensuous  delight,  which  converts  heroism  itself 
into  a  phase  of  the  comfortable,  and  disinterestedness 
into  one  of  the  fine  arts.  The  natures  of  such  men, 
being  deeper,  healthier,  and  more  broadly  inclusive 
than  the  natures  of  intense  and  morbid  authors,  are 
necessarily  stronger,  more  searching,  and  admit  of  less 
resistance.  In  order  that  they  may  be  genially  assimi- 
lated, we  must  keep  them  at  such  a  distance  as  to  save 


30  CHARACTER. 

our  own  personality  from  being  insensibly  merged  into 
theirs.  They  are  dangerous  guests  if  they  eat  you,  but 
celestial  visitants  if  you  can  contrive  to  eat  even  a  por- 
tion of  them.  It  is  curious  to  see  what  queer  pranks 
they  sometimes  play  with  aspiring  mediocrities,  unqual- 
ified to  receive  more  than  the  forms  of  anything,  who 
strut  about  in  their  liveries,  ostentatious  of  such  badges 
of  intellectual  servitude,  and  emulous  to  act  in  the 
farce  of  high  life  as  it  is  below  stairs.  Thus,  when 
Goethe  first  invaded  the  United  States,  it  was  noised 
about  that  he  was  a  many-sided  man,  free  from  every 
sort  of  misdirecting  enthusiasm,  and  conceiving  and  pre- 
senting all  things  in  their  right  relations.  Instantly  a 
swarm  of  Goethes  sprang  up  all  around  us,  wantoning 
in  nonchalance  and  the  fopperies  of  comprehensiveness. 
The  thing  was  found  to  be  easier  even  than  Byronisra, 
requiring  no  scowls,  no  cursing  and  swearing,  no  in- 
creased expenditure  for  cravats  and  gin ;  and,  accord- 
ingly, one  could  hardly  venture  into  society  without 
meeting  some  youthful  Uase,  whose  commonplace  was 
trumpeted  as  comprehension,  whose  intellectual  laziness 
was  dignified  with  the  appellation  of  repose,  and  whose 
many-sidedness  was  the  feeble  expression  of  a  person- 
ality without  sufficient  force  to  rise  even  into  one-sided- 
ness. 

So  far  we  have  considered  character  principally  as 


CHARACTER.  31 

it  works  in  practical  affairs  and  in  literature ;  but 
perhaps  its  grandest  and  mightiest  exemplifications  are 
in  those  rare  men  who  have  passed  up,  through  a 
process  of  life  and  growth,  from  the  actual  world 
into  the  region  of  universal  sentiments  and  great  spir- 
itual ideas.  Every  step  in  the  progress  of  such  men 
is  through  material  and  spiritual  facts,  each  of  which 
is  looked  into,  looked  through,  and  converted  into 
force  for  further  advance.  The  final  elevation  they 
attain,  being  the  consequence  of  natural  growth,  has 
none  of  the  instability  of  heights  reached  by  occa- 
sional raptures  of  aspiration,  but  is  as  solid  and  as  firm 
as  it  is  high ;  and  their  characters,  expressed  in  deeds 
all  alive  with  moral  energy,  are  fountains  whence  the 
world  is  continually  replenished  with  a  new  and  nobler 
life.  A  great  and  comprehensive  person  of  this  ex- 
alted order,  to  whom  the  imaginations  of  the  poet 
seem  but  the  commonplaces  of  the  heaven  in  which 
he  dwells,  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  his  counter- 
feits, that  is,  with  certain  agile  natures  that  leap, 
with  one  bound  of  thought,  from  the  every-day  world 
to  an  abstract  and  mocking  ideal ;  and,  perched  on 
their  transitory  elevation,  fleer  and  gibe  at  the  social 
system  to  which  they  really  belong,  and  of  which, 
with  all  its  sins  and  follies,  they  are  far  from  being 
the  best  or  the  wisest  members.     The  impression  left 


82  CHARACTER. 

by  the  reality  is  radiant  spiritual  power ;  the  impress 
sion  left  by  the  counterfeit  is  simply  pertness. 

But  let  a  great  character,  with  the  celestial  city 
actually  organized  within  him,  descend  upon  a  com- 
munity to  revolutionize  and  reform,  and,  in  the  con- 
flict which  ensues,  he  is  sure  to  be  victorious,  for  he 
is  strong  with  a  diviner  strength  than  earth  knows, 
and  wields  weapons  whose  stroke  no  mortal  armor 
can  withstand.  If  he  come  at  all,  he  comes  in  a  bodily 
form,  and  he  comes  to  disturb  ;  and  society,  with  a 
bright  apprehension  of  these  two  facts,  has  heretofore 
thought  it  a  shrewd  contrivance  to  remove  him  to 
another  world  before  he  had  utterly  disordered  this. 
But  in  this  particular  case  its  axes,  and  gibbets, 
and  fires  could  not  apply ;  for  the  tremendous  per- 
sonality it  sought  to  put  out  of  the  way  had  been 
built  up  by  an  assimilation  of  the  life  of  things ;  and 
all  mortal  engines  were  therefore  powerless  to  destroy 
one  glowing  atom  of  his  solid  and  immortally  persist- 
ing nature.  Accordingly,  after  his  martyrdom,  he  is 
the  same  strange,  intrusive,  pertinacious,  resistless  force 
that  he  was  before  ;  active  as  ever  in  every  part  of 
the  social  frame  ;  pervading  the  community  by  degrees 
with  his  peculiar  life ;  glaring  in  upon  his  murderers 
in  their  most  secret  nooks  of  retirement ;  rising,  like 
(     the  ghost  of  Banquo,  to   spread  horror   and   amaze- 


CHARACTER.  33 

ment  over  their  feasts ;  searing  their  eyeballs  with 
strange  "  sights,"  even  in  the  public  markets ;  nor 
does  he  put  off  the  torment  of  his  presence  until  the 
cowards  who  slew  him  have  gone,  like  Henry  the 
Second,  to  the  tomb  of  Becket,  and,  in  the  agonies 
of  fear  and  remorse,  have  canonized  him  as  a  saint. 
In  these  scattered  remarks  on  a  subject  broad  as 
human  life,  and  various  as  the  actual  and  possible 
combinations  of  the  elements  of  human  nature,  I  have 
attempted  to  indicate  the  great  vital  fact  in  human 
affairs,  that  all  influential  power,  in  all  the  depart- 
ments of  practical  intellectual  and  moral  energy,  is 
the  expression  of  character,  of  forcible,  persisting,  and 
calculable  persons,  who  have  grown  up  into  a  stat- 
ure more  or  less  colossal  through  an  assimilation  of 
material  or  spiritual  realities.  This  fact  makes  pro- 
duction the  test  and  measure  of  power,  imprints  on 
production  the  mental  and  moral  imperfections  of 
that  power,  and,  with  a  kind  of  sullen  sublimity, 
declares  that  as  a  man  is  so  shall  be  his  work.  It 
thus  remorselessly  tears  off  all  the  gaudy  ornaments 
of  opinion  and  phrase  with  which  conceit  bedizens 
weakness,  and  exhibits  each  person  in  his  essential 
personality.  The  contemplation  of  this  fact,  like  the 
contemplation  of  all  facts,  may  sadden  the  sentimental 
and  the  luxurious,  as  it  reveals  Alps  to  climb,  not 
2*  c 


84  CHARACTER. 

bowers  of  bliss  to  bask  in ;  but  to  manly  natures,  who 
disdain  the  trappings  of  pretension,  the  prospect  is 
healthy,  and  the  sharp  sleet  air  invigorating.  By 
showing  that  men  and  things  are  not  so  good  or  so 
great  as  they  seem,  it  may  destroy  the  hope  born  of 
our  dreams ;  but  it  is  the  source  of  another  and  more 
bracing  hope,  born  of  activity  and  intelligence.  By 
the  acidity  with  which  it  mocks  the  lazy  aspirations, 
blown  up  as  bubbles  from  the  surface  of  natures  which 
are  really  crumbling  into  dust  amidst  their  pretty 
playthings,  this  fact  may  seem  a  sneering  devil; 
but  if  it  start  into  being  one  genuine  thrill  of  vital 
thought,  or  touch  that  inmost  nerve  of  activity  whence 
character  derives  its  force,  it  will  be  found  to  cheer 
and  to  point  upward  like  other  angels  of  the  Lord. 


n. 

ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER. 

ONE  of  the  most  prominent  characteristics  which 
strike  an  observer  of  human  life  is  the  sulky, 
sleepy  common  sense  which  shapes,  guides,  and  lim- 
its its  ordinary  affairs  ;  a  common  sense  fruitful  of 
definite  opinions,  creative  of  stable  works,  solid,  per- 
severing, consistent,  intolerant-  of  innovation,  contemp- 
tuous of  abstract  truth  and  ideal  right,  and  most 
sublimely  content  with  itself.  This  common  intelli- 
gence, the  democracy  of  reason,  the  wits  love  to 
stigmatize  as  stupidity,  because  it  rigorously  resists 
all  substitution  of  smart  sayings  for  commodious  in- 
stitutions, and  is  insensible  to  the  value  of  all  thoughts 
which  wall  not  hitch  on  to  things.  It  believes  in 
bread,  beef,  houses,  laws,  trade,  talent,  the  prices- 
current,  the  regular  course  of  events,  and,  perhaps, 
in  the  spirituality  of  table-knockings ;  it  disbelieves  in 
total  abstinence,  woman's  rights,  transcendentalism, 
perfectibility,  and  to  the  humane  interrogation  "Am 
I  not  a  man  and  a  brother  ?  "  it  stoutly  answers,  "  No, 


36  ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER. 

jou  are  not !  "  The  great  merit  of  this  coinmon  sense 
consists  in  its  representing  the  average  intellect  and 
conscience  of  the  civilized  world,  —  of  that  portion  of 
intelligence,  morality,  and  Christianity  which  has  been 
practically  embodied  in  life  and  active  power.  It  de- 
stroys pretence  and  quackery,  and  tests  genius  and 
heroism.  It  changes  with  the  progress  of  society, 
persecutes  in  one  age  what  it  adopts  in  the  next ; 
its  martyrs  of  the  sixteenth  century  are  its  prece- 
dents and  exponents  of  the  nineteenth ;  and  a  good 
part  of  the  common  sense  of  an  elder  day  is  the 
common  nonsense  of  our  own.  It  would  decay  and 
die  out  were  it  not  continually  nourished  by  the  nev^ 
and  freshening  life  poured  into  it  by  the  creativt 
thinkers  whom  it  denounces  as  unpractical  visionaries 
It  always  yields  in  the  end  to  every  person  who  rep 
resents  a  higher  intellectual,  moral,  or  spiritual  ener 
gy  than  its  own,  and  the  grandest  achievement  of 
individual  power  is  the  conception  of  a  new  thoughl 
of  such  indestructible  and  victorious  vitality,  that  it 
breaks  through  all  the  obstacles  which  obstruct  the 
passage  of  heresies  into  truisms,  and  converts  private 
opinion  into  common  sense. 

It  would  seem  to  be  a  good  law  of  life  that  mer 
should  be  thus  associated  in  mental  recognition  of 
common  principles  of  intelligence,  level  to  their  ordi 


ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER.  37 

nary  actions,  and  thus  present  a  solid  bulwark  of 
sound  character,  on  which  pretension  should  try  its 
tricks,  ^'"d  nonsense  spend  its  fury,  in  vain,  but 
which  genuine  intellectual  or  moral  energy  might 
overturn  or  overleap.  The  great  office  of  common 
sense  is  to  set  up  the  general  wisdom  and  the  gen- 
eral will  against  the  caprices  of  individual  opinion 
and  the  excesses  of  self-will.  Its  maxims  and  prov 
erbs  constitute  a  kind  of  intellectual  currency,  issued, 
apparently,  on  the  authority  of  human  nature,  and 
based  on  the  experience  of  sixty  centuries.  The  de- 
viations from  its  established  order,  whether  the  devi- 
ations of  whim  or  the  deviations  of  genius,  it  calls 
Eccentricity.  The  essential  characteristic  of  this  or- 
der consists  in  its  disposing  things  according  to  their 
mutual  relations,  —  the  natural  relations  they  would 
assume  in  practical  life,  provided  they  received  no 
twists  from  individual  vanity,  or  conceit,  or  passion. 
Eccentricity  is  the  disturbance  of  the  relations  enjoined 
by  common  sense,  and  a  habit  of  looking  at  things, 
not  in  their  relations  to  each  other,  but  in  their  re- 
lations to  the  dominant  wilfulness  of  the  individual. 
Its  most  ordinary  form  is  the  rebellion  of  mediocrity 
against  the  laws  of  its  own  order.  When  this  pro- 
ceeds on  any  grounds  of  original  disposition,  it  soon 
exalts  caprice  into  a  principle  and  organizes  crotchets 


88  ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER. 

into  character.  Men  of  this  stamp,  in  whose  huddled 
minds  disorder  is  welded  together  by  a  kind  of  crazy 
force  of  individuality,  commonly  pass  for  more  than 
they  are  worth.  Their  self-will,  the  parent  of  bound- 
less impudence  and  furious  self-assertion,  gives  au- 
dacity to  intellectual  littleness,  raciness  to  intellectual 
anarchy,  and  a  certain  flash  and  sparkle  to  meanness 
and  malice.  The  little  brain  they  have,  thus  galvan- 
ized by  constant  contact  with  the  personal  pronoun, 
presents  a  grand  exhibition  of  mediocrity  in  convul-' 
sions,  of  spite  in  spasms,  of  impulses  in  insurrection 
animating  thoughts  in  heaps.  Commonplaces  are 
made  to  look  like  novelties  by  being  shot  forth  in 
hysteric  bursts.  Startling  paradoxes  are  created  out 
of  inverted  truisms.  The  delirium  of  impatient  sensa- 
tions is  put  forward  as  the  rapture  of  heaven-scaling 
imaginations.  Yet  through  all  the  jar,  and  discord, 
and  fussy  miscreativeness  of  such  chaotic  minds  there 
runs  an  unmistakable  individuality,  by  which  you  can 
discriminate  one  crazy  head  from  another,  and  refer 
the  excesses  of  each  to  their  roots  in  character. 

It  is  only,  however,  when  eccentricity  connects 
itself  with  genius  that  we  have  its  raciest  and  most 
riotous  disregard  of  the  restraints  of  custom  and  the 
maxims  of  experience.  Sane  and  healthy  genius,  it 
is   true,  is    often   at  war   with   recognized   principles 


ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER.  89 

without  being  eccentric.  If  it  violates  the  conven- 
tional order,  and  disturbs  the  practical  relations  of 
things,  it  is  because  it  discerns  a  higher  order,  and 
discovers  relations  more  essential.  Eccentricity  views 
things  in  relation  to  its  own  crotchet;  genius,  in  re- 
lation to  a  new  idea.  There  is  a  world-wide  differ- 
ence between  the  eccentric  fanaticism  of  John  of 
Munster  and  the  religious  genius  of  Martin  Luther, 
though  both  assailed  the  established  order.  But 
genius  itself  sometimes  falls  under  the  dominion  of 
wilfulness  and  whim,  and  it  then  creates  magnificent 
crotchets  of  its  own.  Let  us  now  survey  this  two- 
fold eccentricity  of  ordinary  and  extraordinary  minds, 
as  it  appears  in  social  life,  in  the  arena  of  politics 
and  government,  in  religion,  and,  in  its  more  refined 
expression,  in  literature  and  art. 

In  regard  to  the  eccentricities  of  character  devel- 
oped in  social  life,  the  most  prominent  relate  to  the 
freaks  of  impulse  and  passion.  In  most  old  commu- 
nities there  is  a  common  sense  even  in  sensuality. 
Vice  itself  gets  gradually  digested  into  a  system,  is 
amenable  to  certain  laws  of  conventional  propriety 
and  honor,  has  for  its  object  simply  the  gratification 
of  its  appetites,  and  frowns  with  quite  a  conservative 
air  on  all  new  inventions,  all  untried  experiments, 
in  iniquity.     There  is  often,  for  instance,  in  gluttony 


40  ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER. 

a  solid  and  stolid  respectability,  a  calm  and  grand 
devotion  of  the  whole  man  to  the  gastronomic  ec- 
stasy, which  evinces  that  appetite  has  been  organized 
into  faith  and  life.  Thus  Doctor  Johnson,  at  a  Lord 
Mayor's  dinner,  committed  the  scandalous  impropriety 
of  talking  wit  and  wisdom  to  an  alderman  by  his 
side,  who  desired  to  concentrate  his  whole  energies 
on  the  turtle.  "  Sir,"  said  the  alderman,  in  a  tone 
and  with  a  look  of  awful  rebuke,  "in  attempting 
to  listen  to  your  long  sentences,  and  give  you  a 
short  answer,  I  have  swallowed  two  pieces  of  green 
fat,  without  tasting  the  flavor.  I  beg  you  to  let  me 
enjoy  my  present  happiness  in  peace."  Examples 
might  be  multiplied  of  the  gravity  and  sobriety  which 
vices  assume  when  they  are  institutions  as  well  as 
appetites. 

But  the  spoiled  children  of  wealth,  rank,  and  fash- 
ion soon  profess  themselves  bored  with  this  time- 
honored,  instituted,  and  decorous  dissoluteness,  and 
demand  something  more  stimulating  and  piquant, 
something  which  will  tickle  vanity  and  plume  will. 
A  certain  crazy  vehemence  of  individual  life,  in 
which  impatience  of  restraint  is  combined  with  a 
desire  to  startle,  leads  them  to  attempt  to  scale  the 
eminences  of  immorality  by  originalities  in  lawless- 
ness and  discoveries  in  diabolism.     Despising  the  timid 


ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER.  41 

science  of  the  old  fogies  of  sensuality,  these  bright 
young  fellows  let  loose  all  the  reins  of  restraint,  flame 
out  in  all  the  volatilities  of  sin  and  vagaries  of  vice, 
and  aim  to  realize  a  festivity  dashed  with  insanity 
and  spiced  with  satanic  pride.  They  desire  not 
merely  wine,  but  the  "  devil's  wine  " ;  something  which 
will  give  a  zest,  a  sharp,  tingling,  fearful,  wicked 
relish  to  excess.  They  have  a  kind  of  "hunger  and 
thirst  after  unrighteousness " ;  and,  poets  in  dissipa- 
tion, pursue  a  constantly  receding  ideal  of  frantic 
delighU  Their  deity  of  pleasure  is  the  bewitching 
daughter  of  sin  and  death,  who  streams  mockingly 
before  their  inward  vision  with  flushed  cheeks,  crazy, 
sparkling  eyes,  and  mad,  dishevelled  tresses.  Such 
were  Buckingham,  Rochester,  Wharton,  Queensberry, 
—  noble  roues,  high  in  the  peerage  of  debauch, 
whose  brilliant  rascality  illustrates  the  annals  of  ec- 
centric libertinism ;  who  devoted  their  lives,  fortunes, 
and  sacred  honor  to  the  rights  of  reprobates,  and 
raised  infamy  itself  to  a  kind  of  fame ;  —  men  who 
had  a  sublime  ambition  to  become  heroes  in  sensual- 
ity, and  seem  to  have  taken  for  their  model  that 
Dionysius  of  Sicily  whom  Plutarch  commemorates  as 
having  prolonged  a  drunken  feast  through  ninety  days. 
Rochester,  when  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  Bishop 
Burnet,  could  hardly  recollect  the  time  when  he  had 


42  ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER. 

been  sober,  and  might,  with  the  amiable  simplicity 
recorded  of  another  inebriate,  have  staggered  into  an 
intelligence  office,  to  know  where  he  had  been  for  the 
last  ten  years.  Wharton,  bragging  to  Swift  of  his 
drunken  frolics,  was  advised  by  that  cynical  satirist  to 
vary  his  caprices  a  little,  and  take  a  frolic  to  be  vir- 
tuous. Indeed,  in  these  men  the  "  wet  damnation " 
of  drunkenness  seems  to  have  filtered  through  their 
senses  into  their  souls,  so  as  to  make  reason  reel  and 
conscience  stagger,  and  the  whole  man  to  decline 
from  an  immoral  into  an  unmoral  being.  Yet  this 
suicide  of  soul  and  body  is,  by  such  disciples  and 
martyrs  of  pleasure,  ludicrously  misnamed  "life.** 
Its  philosophy  is  concentrated  in  a  remark  made  by 
George  Selwyn,  as  he  surveyed  himself  in  the  glass, 
the  day  after  a  heroic  debauch :  "  I  look  and  feel 
villanously  bad,"  he  said ;  "  but,  hang  it,  it  is  life,  — 
it  is  life !  " 

These  devotees  and  fanatics  of  pleasure  represent 
that  form  of  eccentricity  in  which  the  head  seems  too 
small  for  the  passions  of  the  individual  to  move  about 
in,  and  they  accordingly  appear  to  craze  and  -  rend 
the  brain  in  the  desperate  effort  to  escape  from  their 
prison.  But  there  are  other  eccentrics  in  whom  we 
observe  the  opposite  process,  persons  whose  thoughts 
and    feelings    are  all  turned  inward,  and  group   or 


ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER.  43 

huddle  round  some  conceit  of  their  wilfulness,  some 
hobby  of  their  intellect,  or  some  master  disposition 
of  their  selfishness.  These  are  the  men  who  gradu- 
ally become  insane  on  some  one  darling  peculiarity 
of  character,  which  is  exaggerated  into  huge  size  by 
assiduous  training.  It  is,  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
would  say,  "an  acorn  in  their  young  brows  which 
grows  to  an  oak  in  their  old  heads."  Conceit,  for 
instance,  often  ends  in  making  a  man  mentally  and 
morally  deaf  and  blind.  He  hears  nothing  but  the 
whispers  of  vanity,  he  sees  nothing  but  what  is  re- 
flected in  the  mirror- of  self-esteem,  though  society  all 
the  while  may  be  on  the  broad  grin  or  in  a  civil 
titter  at  his  pompous  nothingness.  He  will  doubt 
everything  before  he  doubts  his  own  importance ; 
and  his  folly,  being  based  on  a  solid  foundation  of 
self-delusion,  steals  out  of  him  in  the  most  uncon- 
scious and  innocent  way  in  the  world.  Thus  the 
proud  Duke  of  Somerset,  whose  conceit  was  in  his 
rank  and  his  long  line  of  forefathers,  once  declared 
that  he  sincerely  pitied  Adam  because  he  had  no  an- 
cestors. The  Earl  of  Buchan,  a  poor  aristocrat,  was 
accustomed  to  brood  in  his  Edinburgh  garret  over 
the  deeds  and  splendors  of  his  ancestors,  until  he 
identified  himself  with  them,  and  would  startle  his 
acquamtances    with   the   remark,   "  When   I   was    in 


44  ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER. 

Palestine  with  Richard  of  the  Lion  Heart,"  or,  "  As 
I  was  going  to  see  the  execution  of  Charles  the 
First,"  such  and  such  things  occurred.  His  greater 
brother,  Erskine,  the  glory  of  Westminster  Hall,  was 
an  egotist  of  genius,  and  was  such  a  spendthrift  of 
the  personal  pronoun,  that  Cobbett,  who  was  once 
printing  one  of  his  speeches,  stopped  in  the  middle, 
giving  as  his  reason,  that  at  this  point  the  "  I's  "  in 
his  fount  of  type  gave  out,  and  he  could  not  proceed. 
This  egotism,  which  in  Erskine  was  mingled  with 
genius  and  good-nature,  often  frets  itself  into  a  mor- 
bid unreasonableness  which  is  satire-proof.  Thus  we 
heard  but  the  other  day  of  an  eccentric  German 
who  prosecuted  an  author  who  had  anticipated  him  in 
the  publication  of  an  invention,  on  the  ground  that 
the  idea  had  been  abstracted  from  his  own  head 
through  a  process  of  animal  magnetism.  But  the 
most  sovereign  and  malignant  of  these  eccentric  ego- 
tists was  undoubtedly  Sarah,  Duchess  of  Marlborough, 
who,  while  she  lived,  was  the  most  terrible  creature 
in  Great  Britain.  She  bullied  Queen  Anne,  and  she 
henpecked  the  Great  Duke  himself,  who,  serene  as 
a  summer  morning  in  a  tempest  of  bullets,  cowered 
in  his  own  palace  before  her  imperious  will.  She 
defied  everything,  death  included.  Indeed,  death,  like 
everybody  else,  seemed  to  be  afraid  of  her.     In  her 


ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER.  45 

old  age  she  became  as  ugly  and  as  spiteful  a  crone  as 
ever  was  ducked  or  burned  for  witchcraft.  She  took 
a  malicious  delight  in  living,  because,  though  life  gave 
her  no  pleasure,  it  gave  others  pain.  At  one  time 
It  was  thought  she  must  go.  She  lay  for  a  great 
while  speechless  and  senseless.  The  physician  said, 
'*  She  must  be  blistered  or  she  will  die."  This 
touched  her,  and  she  screamed  out,  ''  /  worCt  he  hlis- 
tered,  and  I  wo7iH  die !  "  and  she  kept  her  word. 

But  the  mirth  of  society  changes  to  wailing  when 
this  conceit  develops  itself  into  a  hobby,  and  takes 
nen  by  the  button  to  pester  them  with  the  rationale 
>f  its  bit  of  absurdity.  The  hobby-monger  is  the 
Dnly  perfect  and  consummated  bore,  and  eccentricity 
»n  him  becomes  a  very  dismal  joke.  Self-convinced 
of  the  value  of  his  original,  deeply  cogitated  piece  of 
nonsense,  he  is  determined  to  devote  his  life,  and 
your  money,  to  the  task  of  converting  his  great 
thought  into  a  great  fact,  and  to  make  incapacity 
itself  a  source  of  income.  The  thing  is  a  new  mode 
of  levying  black-mail,  for  the  cheapest  way  to  escape 
from  the  teasing  persecution  of  his  tongue  is  to  de- 
liver up  your  purse.  His  success  generates  a  whole 
brood  of  blockheads,  who  install  hobbyism  into  an 
institution,  and  flood  the  country  with  hobby  patriot- 
ism,  hobby   science,   hobby    medicine,   hobby    philan- 


\ 


46  ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER. 

tliropy,  hobby  theology,  hobby  morality,  and  hobby 
immorality.  Dunces  who  never  had  but  one  thought 
in  their  lives,  —  and  that  a  foolish  one,  —  they  cling  to 
that  with  the  tenacity  of  instinct,  and  set  up,  on  the 
strength  of  it,  as  Galileos,  or  Arkwrights,  or  Clark- 
sons,  or  Luthers,  transmuting  sneers,  gibes,  invectives, 
blows,  into  a  sweet,  celestial  ichor,  to  slake  the  thirst 
of  their  conceit.  They  are,  to  be  sure,  very  candid 
gentlemen.  Their  cry  is,  "Examine  before  you  con- 
demn." Ah !  examine ;  but,  since  the  lamented  de- 
cease of  Methuselah,  human  life  has  been  unfortunately 
contracted,  and  human  knowledge  unfortunately  en- 
larged, and  it  is  really  the  coolest  impertinence  im- 
aginable to  expect  that  a  man  will  spend  his  short 
existence  in  inspecting  and  exploding  humbugs,  and 
end  at  fourscore  in  establishing  a  principle  which  he 
ought  to  have  taken  on  trust  in  his  teens.  It  is 
better  to  ride  a  hobby  of  one's  own  than  to  give 
one's  whole  attention  to  discovering  the  futility  of 
the  hobbies  of  others ;  and  better  still,  as  these  gen- 
tlemen are  determined  that  society  shall  support  them, 
to  save  time  by  submitting  to  assessment.  In  our 
country  the  hobby -mongers  seem  fairly  to  be  in  the 
ascendant,  and  the  right  to  mind  one's  own  business 
must  be  purchased  of  these  idle  dunces  portentously 
developed  into  voluble  bores.     Whatever  may  be  their 


ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER.  47 

plan,  and  however  deep  may  be  their  self-deception, 
their  principle  of  action  is  identical  with  that  of 
Punch's  music-grinder,  who  contemptuously  refuses 
the  penny  you  toss  at  him,  to  silence  his  soul-stab- 
bing melodies,  and  clamorously  demands  a  shilling 
us  the  price  of  his  "  moving  on."  "  Don't  you  sup 
pose,"  he  inquires,  "  that  I  know  the  vally  of  peace 
and  quietness  as  well  as  you  ?  *' 

But  the  conceit  of  one's  self  and  the  conceit  of 
one's  hobby  are  hardly  more  prolific  of  eccentricity 
than  the  conceit  of  one's  money.  Avarice,  the  most 
hateful  and  wolfish  of  all  the  hard,  cool,  callous  dis- 
positions of  selfishness,  has  its  own  peculiar  caprices 
and  crotchets.  The  ingenuities  of  its  meanness  defy 
all  the  calculations  of  reason,  and  reach  the  miracu- 
lous in  subtlety.  Foote,  in  endeavoring  to  express 
the  microscopic  niggardliness  of  a  miser  of  his  ac- 
quaintance, expressed  a  belief  that  he  would  be  will- 
ing to  take  the  beam  out  of  his  own  eye  if  he  knew 
he  could  sell  the  timber.  Doubtless  one  source  of 
the  eccentric  miser's  insane  covetousness  and  parsi- 
mony is  the  tormenting  fear  of  dying  a  beggar,  — 
that  "  fine  horror  of  poverty,"  according  to  Lamb, 
"  by  which  he  is  not  content  to  keep  want  from  the 
door,  or  at  arm's  length,  but  he  places  it,  by  heap- 
ing   wealth    upon    wealth,    at    a    sublime    distance'* 


48  ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER. 

"Well,  after  saving,  and  pinching,  and  scraping,  and 
stealing,  and  freezing,  and  starving.  Curmudgeon,  the 
skeleton,  comes  face  to  face  with  another  skeleton, 
Death,  and  that  fleshless  form,  with  an  ironic  grin, 
huddles  him  away,  —  and  he  is  remembered  only  by 
those  he  has  cheated.  But  his  perverse  sharpness 
does  not  desert  him  even  in  his  last  hours.  Scrooge 
is  reported  to  be  dying.  It  is  said  that  in  his  will 
he  has  left  something  to  a  charitable  society,  and  the 
secretary  thereof  "  happens  in,"  to  console  him.  "  You 
think,"  says  Scrooge,  with  a  malicious  sparkle  in  his 
closing  eyes,  "that  I  am  going,  but  the  doctor  says 
the  attack  is  not  fatal.  If  you  will  take  that  bequest 
now,  at  a  deduction  of  ten  per  cent.  111  pay  it." 
"  Done  !  "  said  the  secretary.  "  Done  ! "  says  Scrooge, 
and  dies,  —  dies  consistent  and  triumphant,  with  a 
discount  on  his  lips  instead  of  a  prayer. 

It  is,  however,  in  politics  and  public  affairs  that 
the  strange  antics  of  eccentricity  produce  the  smart- 
est shocks  of  surprise.  Here  everything  is  done  in 
the  eyes  of  men,  and  disordered  minds  parade  their 
caprices  to  a  laughing  or  cursing  world.  In  this 
sphere  of  action  and  passion  it  is  impossible  to  group 
or  define.  The  representation  tends  to  become  as 
Tvild  and  whirling  as  the  vagaries,  volatilities,  and 
inconsistencies   it   describes.      It   requires    more   than 


ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER.  49 

ordinary  steadiness  of  character  for  a  statesman  to 
escape  from  the  eccentricities  produced  by  ambition, 
and  the  eccentricities  produced  by  reaching  the  object 
of  ambition,  —  power.  The  strife  of  politics  tends  to 
unsettle  the  calmest  understanding,  and  ulcerate  the 
most  benevolent  heart.  There  are  no  bigotries  or 
absurdities  too  gross  for  parties  to  create  or  adopt 
under  the  stimulus  of  political  passions.  The  path 
of  all  great  statesmen  lies  between  two  opposing  in- 
sanities, and  we  can  never  appreciate  the  superb  se- 
renity of  such  men  as  Washington,  Hamilton,  Jay, 
Jefferson,  Madison,  until  we  realize  the  atmosphere 
of  madness,  rancor,  and  folly  they  were  compelled 
to  breathe.  There,  for  instance,  among  other  causes 
or  occasions  of  political  eccentricity,  is  the  love  of 
innovation  in  itself,  and  the  hatred  of  innovation  in 
itself ;  both  productive  of  eccentric  partisans,  in  whose 
struggles  common  sense  is  suspended  by  mutual  con- 
sent. By  the  eccentric  reformer,  institutions  are  de- 
nounced as  confining  Liberty  in  strait-waistcoats;  by 
the  eccentric  conservative,  Liberty  is  denounced  as 
putting  firebrands  into  the  hands  of  madmen.  Thus 
many  of  our  disgusted  American  conservatives  ap- 
plauded Louis  Napoleon's  usurpation  on  the  ground 
that  he  would  restore  old  abuses,  and  saw  France, 
with  delight,  leap  back  thousands  of  years  to  the  old 


50  ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER. 

Egyptian  monarchy  of  kings,  priests,  and  soldiers. 
Gibbon,  though  the  most  subtle  of  religious  sceptics, 
had  a  morbid  hatred  of  political  change,  and,  on  the 
breaking  out  of  the  French  Revolution,  joined  the 
bishops  of  the  Established  Church  in  assailing  it. 
He  could  not  help,  however,  indulging  an  ironical 
fling  at  the  new  political  friends  who  were  his  old 
theological  enemies,  and  blandly  reminded  them  that 
if,  in  his  history,  he  had  been  a  little  hard  on  the 
primitive  church,  it  was  from  the  best  of  principles 
and  the  best  of  motives,  for  that  church  was  an  in- 
novation on  the  old  Pagan  Establishment.  But  the 
greatest  conservative  of  this  sort  was  Lord- Chancel- 
lor Thurlow.  A  deputation  of  Presbyterians  having 
waited  on  him  to  request  his  aid  in  obtaining  the  re- 
peal of  certain  statutes  disqualifying  their  body  from 
holding  civil  offices,  Thurlow  thus  bluffly  answered: 
*' Gentlemen,  I  will  be  perfectly  frank  with  you. 
Gentlemen,  I  am  against  you,  and  for  the  Estabhshed 

Church,  by  !     Not   that  I  like  the  Established 

Church  a  bit  better  than  any  other  church,  but  be- 
cause it  is  established.     And  whenever  you   can  get 

your  religion   established,  I'll   be   for   that  too. 

Good  morning  to  you!" 

In    the    eccentricity    of  politicians    the    two    most 
striking    qualities   are   levity   and   malignity,  —  some- 


ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER.  Oi 

times  existing  apart,  and  sometimes  coexisting  ir  one 
mind.  The  most  magnificent  instance  of  levity,  com- 
bined with  genius  and  eloquence,  is  found,  perhaps, 
in  Charles  Townshend,  the  chancellor  of  the  exchequer, 
who  revived  the  scheme  of  American  taxation,  and 
who  carried  into  the  councils  of  Great  Britain  a 
brain  large  enough  for  the  weightiest  affairs,  but  in- 
toxicated with  impudence,  conceit,  and  champagne. 
The  conceptions  of  a  statesman  and  the  courage  of  a 
hero  were  strangely  blended  in  him  with  a  spirit  as 
volatile,  sparkling,  and  unscrupulous  as  ever  animated 
the  rake  of  the  old  comedy.  It  was  as  if  Sir  Har- 
ry Wildair's  tricksiness  and  mercurial  temperament 
had  passed  into  the  head  of  Camden  or  Chatham. 
In  the  majority  of  cases,  however,  the  ambition  or 
possession  of  power  develops  malignity  in  disordered 
minds.  In  John  Randolph  it  took  the  shape  of  a 
fretful  spite  which  poisoned  all  it  touched,  even  his 
own  fine  faculties.  This  mingled  levity  and  malig- 
nity, however,  are  never  seen  in  their  full  absurdi- 
ties and  terrors,  unless  power  be  absolute,  and  caprice 
ranges  over  a  kingdom  or  an  empire,  unrestrained  by 
opinion  or  law.  From  the  old  Oriental  despots  to 
"  the  thing  of  blood  and  mud  "  that  lately  sat  throned 
in  Naples,  the  history  of  eccentric  despots  presents 
such  a  spectacle  of  monkey-like  mischievousness  com- 


52  ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER. 

biued  with  demon-like  malice,  that  we  can  hardly 
recognize  human  nature  in  a  form  so  diabolically  car- 
icatured. In  Nero,  Caligula,  Domitian,  Commodus, 
Heliogabalus,  Paul  of  Russia,  we  observe  that  pecu- 
liar perversity  which  does  wrong  things  because  they 
are  wrong  ;  and  also  that  last  resource  of  little  minds, 
the  desire  to  startle  by  the  commission  of  unnatural 
crimes,  evincing  the  feebleness  and  barrenness  of  tal- 
ent so  apt  to  be  associated  with  such  monstrous 
brutality  of  disposition,.  Nero,  for  example,  finds  that 
the  luxury  of  murder  palls  on  his  jaded  sense,  and 
the  poor  creature  can  hit  upon  no  stimulant  likely 
to  keep  alive  his  relish  for  that  form  of  ferocity 
short  of  murdering  his  wife  and  mother ;  and  at  the 
end  —  for  under  such  governments  there  is  a  decline 
so  deep  in  the  character  of  the  virtues  that  treachery 
becomes  justice,  and  assassination  becomes  patriotism 
—  he  dies  as  thoroughly  blase  as  a  London  cox- 
comb, and  as  abjectly  timid  as  a  girl  who  has  seen 
a  ghost. 

This  eccentric  malignity  is  also  often  developed 
in  men  whose  minds  are  unsettled  by  their  being 
lifted,  in  the  tempests  of  faction,  to  a  power  they 
are  unfitted  to  exercise.  They  are  Pucks  raised  to 
tlie  seat  of  Jove.  Even  Robespierre,  —  who  before 
he   became  a  politician   resigned  a  judicial    ofRce  be- 


ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER.  63 

cause  he  was  opposed  to  capital  punishraent, — seemed 
to  have  beeu  marked  out  by  nature  for  an  opinionated 
philanthropist,  sour  and  wilful  withal,  but  well-mean- 
ing, honest,  self-sacrificing,  narrow  in  mind,  and  obsti- 
nate in  purpose.  When  he  came  to  be  the  head  of 
that  prolonged  mob,  the  government  of  France  during 
the  Reign  of  Terror,  the  poverty  of  his  talents  com- 
pelled him  to  meet  the  crisis  of  affairs  by  the  exploded 
maxims  of  the  old  tyrants.  Like  all  incompetent 
men  who  are  ctirsed  with  power,  he  tried  to  make 
violence  do  the  work  of  insight  and  foresight.  He 
slew  because  he  could  not  think.  He  ended  in  being 
fiendish  because  he  started  in  being  foolish.  The  lit- 
tle thought  he  had  took  the  shape  of  an  inexorable 
but  bad  logic.  He  tried  to  solve  a  political  problem, 
which  might  have  tasked  the  genius,  energy,  and  ex- 
perience of  the  greatest  statesman,  with  a  little  syllo- 
gism, of  which  the  Rights  of  Man  and  the  chopping  off 
the  heads  of  aristocrats  constituted  the  premises,  and 
of  which  peace,  happiness,  equality,  and  fraternity  were 
to  be  the  logical  conclusion.  The  more  he  chopped, 
however,  the  more  complicated  became  his  difficulties. 
New  and  more  puzzling  problems  sprang  up  from  the 
soil  he  w^atered  with  blood.  The  time  came  when  mere 
perversity  and  presumption  could  carry  it  no  longer. 
His  adherents  informed  him  at  night  that  he  was  to 


hi  ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER. 

be  deuounced  and  slain  in  the  Convention  on  the 
morrow,  and  offered  him  the  means  of  crushing  his 
enemies.  He  leaned  that  barren  head  of  his  against 
a  pillar,  and  for  two  hours  tried  to  frame  some  plan 
by  which  to  carry  on  the  government  in  case  he 
triumphed.  But  the  poor  fellow's  invention  had  been 
exhausted  in  the  production  of  his  little  syllogism, 
which  had  miserably  failed  of  success.  He  could 
do  nothing,  he  saw,  but  go  on  murdering  and  mur- 
dering, and  he  had  got  somewhat  tired  of  that.  The 
thought  that  would  open  a  path  through  the  entan- 
glements of  his  situation  would  not  come  into  that 
unfertile  brain.  So,  in  mere  despair,  he  told  his  ad- 
herents to  let  things  take  their  course,  went  to  the 
Convention,  uttered  his  usual  declamation,  was  de- 
nounced, set  upon,  and  slain ;  and  thus  a  capital 
leader  of  a  debating  club,  like  many  a  clever  man 
before  and  since,  was  ruined  by  the  misfortune  of 
being  placed  at  the  head  of  a  nation. 

It  is  both  impossible  to  avoid,  and  dangerous  to 
touch,  in  an  essay  like  this,  the  subject  of  religious 
eccentricity,  though  the  deviations  here  from  the  line 
of  admitted  truths  and  duties  are  innumerable  in 
amount  and  variety.  There  is,  first,  the  eccentricity 
which  proceeds  from  observing  the  proprieties  of  piety 
while  practising  the  precepts  of  atheism,  —  the  linen 


ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER.  56 

decencies  of  behavior  contrastiug  strangely  with  the 
coarse  vices  of  conduct.  Thus  Madame  de  Montes- 
pan,  who  found  it  for  her  interest  and  vanity  to  live 
in  habitual  violation  of  the  Seventh  Commandment, 
was  so  rigorous  in  her  devotions  that  she  weighed 
her  bread  in  Lent.  Cardinal  Bernis,  the  most  worth- 
less of  abbes,  owed  his  advancement  in  the  Church  to 
Madame  de  Pompadour,  the  most  worthless  of  women, 
and  then  refused  "  to  communicate  in  the  dignity  of 
the  purple  with  a  woman  of  so  unsanctimonious  a 
character."  Next  there  is  the  perverted  ingenuity  by 
which  creeds  are  spangled  all  over  with  crotchets, 
and  the  Bible  .made  the  basis  for  conceits  as  subtly 
as  Cowley's  and  as  ridiculous  as  Sprat's.  Who  first 
doubled  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  ?  Vasco  da  Gama, 
you  will  answer.  "  No,"  replies  Vieyra,  a  priest 
of  Portugal ;  "  one  man  passed  it  before  he  did." 
"Who?"  "Jonah  in  the  whale's  belly!"  The 
whale,  it  seems,  from  the  account  of  this  all-knowing 
geographer,  "  went  out  of  the  Mediterranean,  because 
he  had  no  other  course  ;  kept  the  coast  of  Africa  on 
the  left,  scoured  along  Ethiopia,  on  the  shores  of 
Nineveh,  and  making  his  tongue  serve  as  a  paddle, 
landed  the  Prophet  there."  Next,  there  is  the  capri- 
cious suspension  of  the  damnatory  clauses  of  a  creed, 
out  of  respect  to  eminent  individuals,  who   can   give 


56  ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER. 

benefices  if  they  cannot  practise  duties.  Kings  havo 
immensely  profited  by  this  ecclesiastical  urbanity, 
having  been  allowed  to  pass  sweetly  from  riot  and 
rapine  in  this  world  to  rest  and  reward  in  the  next. 
"  Louis  the  well-beloved,"  said  the  priest  who  an- 
nounced the  death  of  Louis  the  Fifteenth,  "  sleeps  in 
the  Lord."  "If  such  a  mass  of  laziness  and  lust," 
growls  Carlyle,  in  reply,  "  sleep  in  the  Lord,  who, 
think  you,  sleeps  elsewhere  ?  " 

But  the  most  ordinary  source  of  the  impious  piety 
and  irreverent  veneration  of  eccentric  religionists  is 
the  substitution  of  an  idolatry  of  self  for  the  wor- 
ship of  God,  the  individual  projecting  his  own  opin- 
ions and  passions  into  the  texts  of  Scripture  and  the 
government  of  the  universe,  and  thus  making  a  Su- 
preme Being  out  of  the  colossal  exaggerations  of 
self-will.  Under  the  impulse  of  a  ravenous  egoism, 
Nature  and  the  Bible  are  converted  into  an  immense 
magnifying-glass  of  his  own  personality,  and  the  Deity 
with  him  is  but  an  infinite  reflection  of  himself.  Such 
is  ever  the  tendency  and  process  of  fanaticism,  and 
therefore  it  is  that  so  many  gods  are  often  worshipped 
in  one  Church.  We  often  smile  at  the  last  excess 
of  pagan  despotism,  the  demand  of  tyrants  that  divine 
honors  shall  be  paid  to  them ;  but  the  same  claim  is 
now  often  urged  by  little  tyrants,   who,  having  divi- 


ECCExXTRIC   CHARACTER.  67 

nized  their  stupidity,  inhumanity,  or  malignity,  strut 
about  in  quite  a  furious  fashion  at  their  divinity 
being  disallowed,  flinging  the  fussy  thunderbolts  of 
their  impotent  wrath  with  the  air  of  Joves  and  iho 
strength  of  pygmies!  What,  think  you,  would  these 
gentlemen  do  in  case  they  possessed  arbitrary  power;* 
If  the  imagination  breaks  down  in  the  attempt  to 
conceive  their  possible  enormities,  the  history  of  re- 
ligious persecution  will  be  of  essential  aid  in  filling 
up  the  gaps  and  enlarging  the  scope  of  the  most 
fertile  and  wide-wandering  fancy.  The  cant  of  our 
day,  which  resents  all  attempts  to  analyze  bad  opin- 
ions down  to  their  roots  in  bad  dispositions,  is  prone 
to  dismiss  the  great  theological  criminals  of  history 
with  the  smooth  remark  that  they  were  sincere  in 
their  Satanic  inhumanities.  They  used  the  rack  and 
the  hot  iron,  —  they  maimed,  tormented,  gibbeted, 
burned,  beheaded,  crucified,  it  is  true  ;  but  then  they 
practised  these  little  diablerie  from  a  sincere  sense 
of  duty !  Sincere,  indeed  !  To  be  sure  they  were  sin- 
cere. They  acted  honestly  and  directly  from  their 
characters.  Their  thoughts,  feelings,  deeds,  —  all  were 
of  a  piece.  But  out  of  what  interior  hell  must  such 
devil's  notions  of  duty  and  Deity  have  sprung? 
How 'much  better  it  would  be  to  strike  at  the  heart 
of  the  matter,  and  acknowledge  at  once,  in  the  sharp, 
3* 


58  ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER. 

incisive  sarcasm  of  Bishop  Warburton,  that  these 
men  acted  thus  because  *^  they  made  God  after  man's 
image,  and  took  the  worst  possible  models  at  that, — 
themselves." 

If  human  life,  in  so  many  departments  of  thought 
and  action,  thus  sparkles  or  glares  with  eccentric 
characters,  it  is  evident  that  they  must  occupy  a 
large  space  in  the  world's  representative  literature. 
Indeed,  from  Aristophanes  down  to  Thackeray,  genius, 
though  often  itself  bristling  with  eccentricities,  has 
been  quick  to  discern,  and  cunning  to  embody,  the 
eccentricities  of  others.  The  representation  has  been 
scornful  or  genial  according  as  wit  or  humor  has 
predominated  in  the  observing  mind.  In  a  majority 
of  cases,  however,  the  whims,  caprices,  crotchets,  rul- 
ing passions,  intrusive  egotisms,  which  make  their 
possessors  butts  or  bores  to  common  sense,  are  by  the 
man  of  mirthful  genius  so  brightened,  interpreted, 
softened,  and  humanized,  and  made  to  glide  into  such 
ludicrous  forms  of  grotesque  character,  that  they  are 
converted  into  attractive  boon  companions  in  the  fes- 
tivities of  mind.  Two  great  writers  in  English  liter- 
ature, Shakespeare  and  Scott,  have  been  pre-eminently 
successful  in  this  embodiment  of  eccentric  character, 
Shakespeare  individualizing  its  various  kinds,*  Scott 
imitating    its    individual    specimens.      Lower    in    the 


ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER.  69 

scale,  and  widely  differing  in  their  manner,  are  Ben 
Jonson,  Vanbrugh,  Fielding,  Smollett,  Miss  Burney, 
Thackeray,  Dickens,  The  author  of  "  Tristram  Shan- 
dy" occupies  in  literature  a  delicious  and  original 
little  world  of  his  own,  answering  to  the  quaint 
craze  in  the  fine  creative  genius  of  Laurence  Sterne. 
Addison,  another  original,  has  made  oddities  the  ob- 
jects of  affection  by  insinuating  into  them  the  shy 
humanities  of  his  beneficent  humor ;  and  in  Sir  Roger 
de  Coverley  has  clothed  eccentricity  with  innocence 
and  sanctified  it  with  love,  while  he  has  made  it 
touch  and  uns^eal  those  fountains  of  merriment  which 
sleep  in  the  innermost  recesses  of  the  heart.  Our 
own  Irving,  who  felt  the  attraction  of  Addison's 
beautiful  reserve  while  in  the  act  of  rushing  off  him- 
self into  caricature,  commenced  his  career  by  welcom- 
ing the  broader  outlines  of  eccentricity  with  riotous, 
roaring  laughter,  and  ended  with  surveying  its  finer 
shades  with  a  demure  smile.  Goldsmith,  again,  half 
lovingly,  half-laughingly,  pictures  forth  foibles  of 
vanity,  and  caprices  of  benevolence,  and  amiable  lit- 
tle crotchets  of  understanding,  which  he  discerns  peep- 
ing slyly  out  from  corners  and  crevices  of  his  own 
busy  brain.  You  can  almost  hear  and  see  these  wits 
and  humorists  through  the  expressive  movement  of 
their  respective  styles.     Steele  titters  as  he  delineates. 


60  ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER. 

Drydeii  chuckles,  Swift  scowls,  Pope  hisses,  a&,  in  wit 
which  is  to  provoke  the  mirth  of  millions,  they  endow 
some  dunce  with  the  immortality  of  contempt.  And 
then  the  more  genial  and  subtle  of  the  humorists 
have  such  an  art  in  allowing  character  to  develop 
itself!  The  n>lly,  or  erratic  disposition,  or  queer  twist 
of  mind  or  morals,  seems  to  leak  out  unwittingly,  to  • 
escape  unawares.  The  man  is  self-exposed  without 
being  himself  conscious  of  exposure,  and  goes  on 
claiming  your  interest  or  pity  in  words  which  excite 
your  mirth  or  scorn.  It  is  like  Captain  Rcok's  at- 
tempt to  rouse  the  sympathy  of  his  fashionable  /riends 
for  his  losses  at  the  gaming-table.  "  I  lost,"  he  says, 
"four  thousand  pounds  last  night,  and  the  worst  of 
it  is,  five  pounds  were  in  cash." 

In  these  writers,  however,  eccentricity  is  viewed 
more  or  less  didactically  or  dramatically.  There  aie 
others  whose  eccentricities  are  personal,  and  shape 
and  color  all  they  see  and  describe.  Such  are  Ful 
ler.  Burton,  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  But  perhaps 
the  most  delightful  and  popular  of  this  class  is  Charles 
Lamb,  —  a  man  cosily  domesticated  by  the  heart's 
fireside  of  his  readers.  Such  wit,  such  humor,  such 
imagination,  such  intelligence,  such  sentiment,  such 
kindliness,  such  heroism,  all  so  quaintly  mixed  and 
mingled,  and   stuttering   out   in  so  freakish  a  fashion, 


ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER.  61 

and  all  blending  so  finely  in  that  exquisite  eccentric 
something  which  we  call  the  character  of  Charles 
Lamb,  make  him  the  most  lovable  of  writers  and 
men.  His  essays,  the  gossip  of  creative  genius,  are 
of  a  piece  with  the  records  of  his  life  and  conversa- 
tion. Whether  saluting  his  copy  of  Chapman's  "Ho- 
mer '*  with  a  kiss,  —  or  saying  a  grace  before  reading 
Milton,  —  or  going  to  the  theatre  to  see  his  own  farce 
acted,  and  joining  in  the  hisses  of  the  pit  when  it 
fails,  —  or  sagely  wondering  if  the  Ogles  of  Somerset 
are  not  descendants  of  King  Lear,  —  or  telling  Bar- 
ry Cornwall  not  to  invite  a  lugubrious  gentleman  to 
dinner  because  his  face  would  cast  a  damp  over  a 
funeral,  —  or  giving  as  a  reason  why  he  did  not  leave 
off  smoking,  the  difficulty  of  finding  an  equivalent 
vice^  —  or  striking  into  a  hot  controversy  between 
Coleridge  and  Hoi  croft,  as  to  whether  man  as  he  is, 
or  man  as  he  is  to  be,  is  preferable,  and  settling  the 
dispute  by  saying,  "  Give  me  man  as  he  is  not  to 
be,"  —  or  doing  some  deed  of  kindness  and  love  with 
tears  in  his  eyes  and  a  pun  on  his  lips,  —  he  is  al- 
ways the  same  dear,  strange,  delightful  companion  and 
friend.  He  is  never  —  the  rogue  —  without  a  scrap 
of  logic  to  astound  common  sense.  "'  Mr.  Lamb," 
says  the  head  clerk  at  the  India  House,  "you  come 
down   very  late   in   the   morning !  "     "  Yes,  sir,"  Mr 


G2  ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER. 

Lamb  replies,  "'but  then  you  know  I  go  home  very 
early  in  the  afternoon."  And  then  with  what  hu- 
morous extravagance  he  expresses  his  peevishness  at 
being  confined  to  such  work,  —  with  curious  ingenuity 
running  his  malediction  on  commerce  along  all  its 
lines  of  influence.  "  Confusion  blast  all  mercantile 
transactions,  all  traffic,  exchange  of  commodities,  in- 
tercourse between  nations,  all  the  consequent  civiliza- 
tion, and  wealth,  and  amity,  and  link  of  society,  and 
getting  rid  of  prejudices,  and  knowledge  of  the  face 
of  the  globe ;  and  rot  all  the  firs  of  the  forest,  that 
look  so  romantic  alive,  and  die  into  desks."  It  is 
impossible  to  cheat  this  frolicsome  humorist  with  any 
pretence,  any  exaggerated  sentiment,  any  of  the  do- 
me-goodisms  of  well-meaning  moral  feebleness.  A  lady 
sends  him  "  Coelebs  in  Search  of  a  Wife,"  for  his  pe- 
rusal and  guidance.  He  returns  it  with  this  quatrain 
written  on  a  fly-leaf,  expressizig  the  slight  disagree- 
ment between  his  views  of  matrimony  and  those  en- 
tertained by  Miss  Hannah  More:  — 

"  If  ever  I  marry  a  wife, 

I'll  marry  a  landlord's  daughter, 
And  sit  in  the  bar  all  day, 

And  drink  cold  brandy  and  water." 

If  he  thus  slips  out  of  controversy  by  making  the 
broadest  absurdities  the  vehicles  of  the  finest  insight, 


ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER.  63 

hm  sense  and  enjoyment  of  absurdities  in  others  rises 
to  rapture.  The  nonsensical  ingenuity  of  the  pam- 
phlet in  which  his  friend  Capel  Lofft  took  the  ground 
that  Napoleon,  while  in  the  hands  of  the  English, 
might  sue  out  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  threw  him  into 
ecstasies.  And  not  only  has  he  quips  and  quirks  and 
twisted  words  for  all  he  sees  and  feels,  but  he  has 
the  pleasantest  art  of  making  his  very  maladies  in- 
teresting by  transmuting  them  into  jests.  Out  of  the 
darkest  depths  of  the  "  dismals "  fly  some  of  his  hap- 
piest conceits.  "  My  bedfellows,"  he  writes  to  Words- 
worth, "are  cough  and  cramp.  We  sleep  three  in  a 
bed."  "  How  is  it,"  lie  says,  "  that  I  cannot  get  rid 
of  this  cold  ?  It  can*t  be  from  a  lack  of  care.  I  have 
studiously  been  out  all  these  rainy  nights  until  twelve 
o'clock,  have  had  my  feet  wet  constantly,  drank  co- 
piously of  brandy  to  allay  inflammation,  and  done 
everything  else  to  cure  it,  and  yet  it  won't  depart," 
—  a  sage  decision,  worthy  of  that  illustrious  physi- 
cian who  told  his  patient  that,  if  he  had  no  serious 
drawbacks,  he  would  probably  be  worse  in  a  w^eek. 
To  crown  all,  and  to  make  the  character  perfect  in 
its  winning  contradictions,  there  beats  beneath  the 
fantastic  covering  and  incalculable  caprices  of  the 
humorist  the  best  heart  in  the  world,  capable  of  cour- 
tesy, of  friendship,  of  love,  of  heroic  self-devotion,  and 
unostentatious  self-sacrifice. 


64  ECCENTRIC    CHARACTER. 

In  this  desultory  survey  of  some  of  the  expressions 
of  eccentric  character  in  social  life,  in  politics,  in  re- 
ligion, in  literature,  we  have  aimed  to  exhibit  eccen- 
tricity in  its  principles  as  far  as  so  slippery,  elastic, 
ancl  elusive  a  quality  will  consent  to  submit  itself  to 
the  limits  of  definition.  We  have  endeavored  to  show 
that  it  is  a  deviation  from  reason  and  common  sense 
for  the  gratification  of  self-will  or  the  indulgence  of 
some  original  craze  in  the  faculties,  and  that  this  de- 
viation tends  to  levity  or  malignity  according  as  the 
nature  is  sweet  or  savage.  We  have  seen  that,  airy, 
innocent,  and  sportive  as  it  may  be  in  the  whims  of 
beautiful  natures,  it  has  often  led  to  follies  so  gross, 
and  crimes  so  enormous,  that  their  actors  seem  to 
have  escaped  from  their  humanity  into  brutes  or  de- 
mons. And  in  this  slight  view  of  the  morbid  phe- 
nomena of  human  nature  we  cannot  fail  to  see  how 
important  is  that  pressure  on  the  individual  of  insti- 
tutions and  other  minds  to  keep  hib  caprices  in  check, 
and  educate  and  discipline  hira  into  reason  and  use- 
fulness, and  what  a  poor  mad  creature  a  man  is 
likely  to  become  when  this  pressure  is  removed. 
Freedom  no  less  than  order  is  the  product  of  inward 
or  outward  restraint ;  and  that  large  and  liberal  dis- 
course of  intelligence  which  thinks  into  the  meaning 
of  institutions,  and  enters  into  communion  with  other 


ECCENTRIC   CHARACTER.  65 

minds, —  which  is  glad  to  believe  that  the  reason  of 
the  race  through  sixty  centuries  of  gradual  develop- 
ment carries  with  it  more  authority  than  some  wild 
freak  or  flash  of  its  own  conceit,  —  this  it  is  which 
emancipates  man  from  egotism,  passion,  and  folly ; 
which  puts  into  his  will  the  fine  instinct  of  wisdom ; 
which  makes  him  tolerant  as  well  as  earnest,  and 
merciful  as  well  as  just ;  which  connects  his  thoughts 
with  things,  and  opens  a  passage  for  them  into  the 
common  consciousness  of  men;  and  which,  chaining 
impulse  to  liberate  intelligence,  and  rounding  in  ec- 
centricity with  the  restraints  of  reason,  enlarges  his 
intellect  only  to  inform  his  conscience,  doubles  his 
power  by  giving  it  a  right  direction,  and  purifies  his 
nature  from  vanity  and  self-will,  to  bind  him,  in  the 
beneficent  bonds  of  a  common  sympathy  and  a  com- 
mon sense,  to  the  rights,  interests,  and  advancement 
of  a  common  humanity. 


^  LIBRA  K  \ 

UNIVEHSITY  OF 


.    CALIFORNIA.  . 
N  -' 


m. 

INTELLECTUAL    CHARACTER. 

THE  desire,  the  duty,  the  necessity  of  the  age 
in  which  we  live  is  education,  or  that  culture 
which  develops,  enlarges,  and  enriches  each  individ- 
ual intelligence,  according  to  the  measure  of  its  ca- 
pacity, by  familiarizing  it  with  the  facts  and  laws  of 
nature  and  human  life.  But,  in  this  rage  for  infor- 
mation, we  too  often  overlook  the  mental  constitution 
of  the  being  we  would  inform,  —  detaching  the  ap- 
prehensive from  the  active  powers,  weakening  char- 
acter by  overloading  memory,  and  reaping  a  harvest 
of  imbeciles  after  we  may  ha^e  flattered  ourselves 
w^e  had  sown  a  crop  of  geniuses.  No  person  can  be 
called  educated,  until  he  has  organized  his  knowledge 
into  faf*ulty,  and  can  wield  it  as  a  weapon.  We 
purpose,  therefore,  to  invite  the  attention  of  our  read- 
ers to  some  remarks  on  Intellectual  Character,  the 
last  and  highest  result  of  intellectual  education,  and 
the  indispensable  condition  of  intellectual  success. 
It  is  evident,  that,  when  a  young   man  leaves  his 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  67 

school  or  college  to  take  his  place  in  the  world,  it 
is  indispensable  that  he  he  something  as  well  as  know 
something ;  and  it  will  require  but  little  experience 
to  demonstrate  to  him  that  what  he  really  knows  is 
little  more  than  what  he  really  is,  and  that  his  pro- 
gress in  intellectual  manhood  is  not  more  determined 
by  the  information  he  retains,  than  by  that  portion 
which,  by  a  benign  provision  of  Providence,  he  is 
enabled  to  forget.  Youth,  to  be  sure,  is  his,  —  youth, 
in  virtue  of  which  he  is  free  of  the  universe,  —  youth, 
with  its  elastic  vigor,  its  far-darting  hopes,  its  gener- 
ous impatience  of  prudent  meanness,  its  grand  denial 
of  instituted  falsehood,  its  beautiful  contempt  of  ac- 
credited baseness,  —  but  youth  which  must  now  con- 
centrate its  wayward  energies,  which  must  discourse 
with  facts  and  grapple  with  men,  and,  through  strife 
and  struggle,  and  the  sad  wisdom  of  experience,  must 
pass  from  the  vague  delights  of  generous  impulses 
to  the  assured  joy  of  manly  principles.  The  moment 
he  comes  in  contact  with  the  stern  and  stubborn  re- 
alities which  frown  on  his  entrance  into  practical  life, 
he  will  find  that  power  is  the  soul  of  knowledge,  and 
character  the  condition  of  intelligence.  He  will  dis- 
cover that  intellectual  success  depends  primarily  on 
qualities  which  are  not  strictly  intellectual,  but  per- 
sonal and  constitutional.     The   test  of  success  is  in- 


68  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

I     fluence,  —  that   is,    the   power   of  shaping   events   by 
I     informing,  guiding,  animating,  controlling  other  minds. 
Whether    this    influence    be    exerted   directly   in   the 
world  of  practical  affairs,  or   indirectly  in  the  world 
of  ideas,  its  fundamental  condition  is  still  force  of  in- 
j      dividual   being,  and   the   amount   of  influence   is   the 
1      measure   of  the   degree   of   force,   just  as    an    effect 
\     measures  a  cause.     The   characteristic  of  intellect   is 
insight,  —  insight  into  things  and  their  relations ;   but 
then  this  insight  is  intense  or  languid,  clear  or   con- 
fused, comprehensive  or  narrow,  exactly  in  proportion 
to  the  weight  and  power  of  the   individual  who  sees 
and  combines.     It  is  not  so  much  the   intellect    that 
/  makes  the  man,  as   the  man  the   intellect ;   in   every 
act   of  earnest    thinking,   the    reach    of  the    thought 
depends  on  the  pressure   of  the  wi^l;   and  we  would 
therefore  emphasize  and  enforce,  as  the  primitive  re- 
quirement  of  intellectual   success,  that   discipline    of 
the    individual    which   develops   dim   tendencies   into 
positive   sentiments,  sentiments   into   ideas,  and   ideas 
into  abilities,  —  that   discipline   by  which   intellect   is 
penetrated  through  and  through  with  the  qualities  of 
manhood,  and   endowed  with   arms   as  well   as   eyes. 
This  is  Intellectual  Character. 
\      Now  it  should  be  thundered  in  the   ears  of  every 
young  man  who  has  passed   through   that  course  of 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  69 

rnstruction  ironically  styled  education,  "What  do  you 
intend  to  be,  and  what  do  you  intend  to  do  ?  Do 
you  purpose  to  play  at  living,  or  do  you  purpose  to 
live  ?  —  to  be  a  memory,  a  word-cistern,  a  feeble 
prater  on  illustrious  themes,  one  of  the  world's  thou- 
sand chatterers,  or  a  will,  a  power,  a  man?  No 
varnish  and  veneer  of  scholarship,  no  command  of 
the  tricks  of  logic  and  rhetoric,  can  ever  make  you 
a  positive  force  in  the  world.  Look  around  you  in 
the  community  of  educated  men,  and  see  how  many, 
who  started  on  their  career  with  minds  as  bright  and 
eager,  and  hearts  as  hopeful  as  yours,  have  been 
mysteriously  arrested  in  their  growth,  —  have  lost  all 
the  kindling  sentiments  which  glorified  their  youthful 
studies,  and  dwindled  into  complacent  echoes  of  sur- 
rounding mediocrity,  —  have  begun,  indeed,  to  die  on 
the  very  threshold  of  manhood,  and  stand  in  society 
as  tombs  rather  than  temples  of  immortal  souls.  See, 
too,  the  wide  disconnection  between  knowledge  and 
life ;  heaps  of  information  piled  upon  little  heads ; 
everybody  speaking,  —  few  who  have  earned  the 
right  to  speak ;  maxims  enough  to  regenerate  a  uni- 
verse, —  a  woful  lack  of  great  hearts,  in  which  rea- 
son, right,  and  truth,  regal  and  militant,  are  fortified 
and  encamped  I  Now  this  disposition  to  skulk  the 
austere  requirements  of  intellectual  growth  in  an  in 


70  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

dolent  surrender  of  the  mind's  power  of  self  direction 
must  be  overcome  at  the  outset,  or,  in  spite  of  your 
grand  generalities,  you  will  be  at  the  mercy  of  every 
bullying  lie,  and  strike  your  colors  to  every  mean 
truism,  and  shape  your  life  in  accordance  with  every 
low  motive,  which  the  strength  of  genuine  wickedness 
or  genuine  stupidity  can  bring  to  bear  upon  you ! " 
There  is  no  escape  from  slavery,  or  the  mere  pre- 
tence of  freedom,  but  in  radical  individual  power ; 
and  all  solid  intellectual  culture  is  simply  the  right 
development  of  individuality  into  its  true  intf^llectual 
form. 

And  first,  at  the  risk  of  being  considered  meta- 
physical,—  though  we  fear  no  metaphysician  would 
indorse  the  charge,  —  let  us  define  what  we  mean  by 
individuality ;  for  the  word  is  commonly  made  to  sig- 
nify some  -peculiarity  or  eccentricity,  some  unreason- 
able twist,  of  mind  or  disposition.  An  individual, 
then,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  use  the  term,  is  a 
causative  spiritual  force,  whose  root  and  being  are  in 
eternity,  but  who  lives,  grows,  and  builds  up  his  na-  , 
ture  in  time.  All  the  objects  of  sense  and  thought, 
all  facts  and  ideas,  all  things,  are  external  to  his 
essential  personality.  But  he  has,  bound  up  in  his 
personal  being,  sympathies  and  capacities  which  ally 
him  with  external   objects,  and   enable  bim  to  trans- 


INTELLECTUAL  CHARACTER.         71 

mute  their  inner  spirit  and  substance  into  his  own 
personal  life.  The  process  of  his  growth,  therefore, 
is  a  development  of  power  from  within  to  assimilate 
objects  from  without,  the  power  increasing  with  every 
vital  exercise  of  it.  The  result  of  this  assimilation 
is  character.  Character  is  the  spiritual  body  of  the 
person,  and  represents  the  individualization  of  vital 
experience,  the  conversion  of  unconscious  things  into 
self-conscious  men.  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  in  quaint 
reference  to  the  building  up  of  our  physical  frame 
through  the  food  we  eat,  declares  that  we  have  all 
been  on  our  own  trenchers;  and  so,  on  the  same 
principle,  our  spiritual  faculties  can  be  analyzed  into 
impersonal  facts  and  ideas,  whose  life  and  substance 
we  have  converted  into  personal  reason,  imagination, 
and  passion.  The  fundamental  characteristic  of  man 
is  spiritual  hunger ;  the  universe  of  thought  and  mat- 
ter is  spiritual  food.  He  feeds  on  Nature ;  he  feeds 
on  ideas ;  he  feeds,  through  art,  science,  literature, 
and  history,  on  the  acts  and  thoughts  of  other  minds 
and  could  we  take  the  mightiest  thinker  that  ever 
awed  and  controlled  the  world,  and  unravel  his  pow- 
ers, and  return  their  constituent  particles  to  the  mul- 
titudinous objects  whence  they  were  derived,  the  last 
probe  of  our  analysis,  after  we  had  sUip^d  biia  of 
all  his  faculties,  would  touch  that  unq'/f.  LC^K^ble  fiery 


72  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

atom  of  personality  which  had  organized  round  itself 
such  a  colossal  body  of  mind,  and  which,  in  its  sim- 
ple naked  energy,  would  still  be  capable  of  rehabili- 
tating itself  in  the  powers  and  passions  of  which  it 
had  been  shorn. 

It  results  from  this  doctrine  of  the  mind's  growth, 
that  success  in  all  the  departments  of  life,  over  which 
intellect  holds  dominion,  depends,  not  merely  on  an 
outside  knowledge  of  the  facts  and  laws  connected 
with  each  department,  but  on  the  assimilation  of  that 
knowledge  into  instinctive  intelligence  and  active 
power.  Take  the  good  farmer,  and  you  will  find  that 
ideas  in  him  are  endowed  with  will,  and  can  work. 
Take  the  good  general,  and  you  will  find  that  the 
principles  of  his  profession  are  inwrought  into  the 
substance  of  his  nature,  and  act  with  the  velocity  of 
instincts.  Take  the  good  judge,  and  in  him  jurispru- 
dence seems  impersonated,  and  his  opinions  are  au- 
thorities. Take  the  good  merchant,  and  you  will  find 
that  commerce,  in  its  facts  and  laws,  seems  in  him 
embodied,  and  that  his  sagacity  appears  identical  with 
the  objects  on  which  it  is  exercised.  Take  the  great 
statesman,  take  Webster,  and  note  how,  by  thorough- 
ly individualizing  his  comprehensive  experience,  he 
seems  to  carry  a  nation  in  his  brain  ;  how,  in  all 
that  relates  to  the  matter  in  hand,  he  has  in  him  as 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  73 

faculty  what  is  out  of  him  in  fact ;  how  between  the 
man  and  the  thing  there  occurs  that  subtile  free-ma- 
sonry of  recognition  which  we  call  the  mind's  in- 
tuitive glance ;  and  how  conflicting  principles  and 
statements,  mixed  and  mingling  in  fierce  confusion 
and  with  deafening  war-cries,  fall  into  order  and  re- 
lation, and  move  in  the  direction  of  one  inexorable 
controlling  idea,  the  moment  they  are  grasped  by 
an  intellect  which  is  in  the  secret  of  their  combina- 
tion :  — 

"Confusion  hears  his  voice,  and  the  wild  uproar  stills.** 

Mark,  too,  how,  in  the  productions  of  his  mind,  the 
presence  and  pressure  of  his  whole  nature,  in  each 
intellectual  act,  keep  his  opinions  on  the  level  of  his 
character,  and  stamps  every  weighty  paragraph  with 
"  Daniel  Webster,  his  mark."  The  characteristic  of 
all  his  great  speeches  is,  that  the  statements,  argu- 
ments, and  images  have  what  we  should  call  a  posi- 
tive being  of  their  own,  —  stand  out  as  plainly  to  the 
sight  as  a  ledge  of  rocks  or  chain  of  hills,  —  and,  like 
the  works  of  Nature  herself,  need  no  other  justifica- 
tion of  their  right  to  exist  than  the  fact  of  their  ex- 
istence. We  may  dislike  their  object,  but  we  cannot 
deny  their  solidity  of  organization.  This  power  of 
giving  a  substantial  body,  an  undeniable  external 
4 


74  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

shape  and  form,  to  his  thoughts  and  perceptions,  so 
that  the  toiling  mind  does  not  so  much  seem  to  pass 
from  one  sentence  to  another,  unfolding  its  leading 
idea,  as  to  make  each  sentence  a  solid  work  in  a 
Torres -Yedras  line  of  fortifications, — this  prodigious 
constructive  faculty,  wielded  with  the  strength  of  a 
huge  Samson-like  artificer  in  the  material  of  mind, 
and  welding  together  the  substances  it  may  not  be 
able  to  fuse,  puzzled  all  opponents  who  understood 
it  not,  and  baffled  the  efforts  of  all  who  understood 
it  well.  He  rarely  took  a  position  on  any  political 
question,  which  did  not  draw  down  upon  him  a  whole 
battalion  of  adversaries,  with  ingenious  array  of  ar- 
gument and  infinite  noise  of  declamation ;  but  after 
the  smoke  and  dust  and  clamor  of  the  combat  were 
over,  the  speech  loomed  up  perfect  and  whole,  a  per- 
manent thing  in  history  or  literature,  while  the  loud 
thunders  of  opposition  had  too  often  died  away  into 
low  mutterings,  audible  only  to  the  adventurous  anti- 
quary who  gropes  in  the  "  still  air "  of  stale  "  Con- 
gressional Debates."  The  rhetoric  of  sentences  how- 
ever melodious,  of  aphorisms  however  pointed,  of  ab- 
stractions however  true,  cannot  stand  in  the  storm  of 
affairs  against  this  true  rhetoric,  in  which  thought  is 
consubstantiated  with  things. 

Now  in  men  of  this  stamp,  who  have  so  organized 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  75 

knowledge  into  faculty  that  they  have  attained  the 
power  of  giving  Thought  the  character  of  Fact,  we 
notice  no  distinction  between  power  of  intellect  and 
power  of  will,  but  an  indissoluble  union  and  fusion 
of  force  and  insight.  Facts  and  laws  are  so  blended 
with  their  personal  being,  that  we  can  hardly  decide 
whether  it  is  thought  that  wills,  or  will  that  thinks. 
Their  actions  display  the  intensest  intelligence ;  their 
thoughts  come  from  them  clothed  in  the  thews  and 
sinews  of  energetic  volition.  Their  force,  being  pro- 
portioned to  their  intelligence,  never  issues  in  that 
wild  and  anarchical  impulse,  or  that  tough,  obstinate, 
narrow  wilfulness,  which  many  take  to  be  the  char- 
acteristic of  individualized  power.  They  may,  in  fact, 
exhibit  no  striking  individual  traits  which  stand  im- 
pertinently prominent,  and  yet  from  this  very  cause 
be  all  the  more  potent  and  influential  individualities. 
Indeed,  in  the  highest  efforts  of  ecstatic  action,  when 
the  person  is  mightiest,  and  amazes  us  by  the  giant 
leaps  of  his  intuition,  the  mere  peculiarities  of  his 
personality  are  unseen  and  unfelt.  This  is  the  case 
with  Homer,  Shakespeare,  and  Goethe,  in  poetry, — 
with  Plato  and  Bacon,  in  philosophy,  —  with  Newton, 
in  science,  —  with  Caesar,  in  war.  Such  men  doubt- 
less had  peculiarities  and  caprices,  but  they  were 
"  burnt  and  purged  away "  by  the  fire  of  their  genius, 


T6  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

when  its  action  was  intensest.  Then  their  whole 
natures  were  melted  down  into  pure  force  and  insight, 
and  the  impression  they  leave  upon  the  mind  js  the 
impression  of  marvellous  force  and  weight  and  reach 
sf  thought. 

If  it  be  objected,  that  these  high  examples  are  fit- 
ted to  provoke  despair  rather  than  stimulate  emulation, 
the  answer  is,  that  they  contain,  exemplify,  and  em^ 
phasize  the  principles,  and  flash  subtile  hints  of  the 
processes,  of  all  mental  growth  and  production.  How 
comes  it  that  these  men's  thoughts  radiate  from  them 
as  acts,  endowed  not  only  with  an  illuminating,  but 
a  penetrating  and  animating  power  ?  The  answer  to 
this  is  a  statement  of  the  genesis,  not  merely  of  gen- 
ius, but  of  every  form  of  intellectual  manhood;  for 
such  thoughts  do  not  leap,  a  la  Minerva,  full-grown 
from  the  head,  but  are  struck  ojBT  in  those  moments 
when  the  whole  nature  of  the  thinker  is  alive  and 
aglow  with  an  inspiration  kindled  long  before  in  re- 
mote recesses  of  consciousness  from  one  spark  of  im- 
mortal fire,  and  unweariedly  burning,  burning,  burning, 
until  it  lit  up  the  whole  inert  mass  of  surrounding 
mind  in  flame. 

To  show,  indeed,  how  little  there  is  of  the  off- 
hand, the  haphazard,  the  hit-or-miss,  in  the  character 
of  creative  thought,  and  how  completely  the  gladdest 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  77 

inspiration  is  earned,  let  us  glance  at  the  psychologi- 
cal history  of  one  of  those  imperial  ideas  which 
measure  the  power,  test  the  quality,  and  convey  the 
life,  of  the  minds  that  conceive  them.  The  progress 
of  such  an  idea  is  from  film  to  form.  It  has  its 
origin  in  an  atmosphere  of  feeling ;  for  the  first  vital 
movement  of  the  mind  is  emotional,  and  is  expressed 
in  a  dim  tendency,  a  feeble  feeling  after  the  object, 
or  the  class  of  objects,  related  to  the  peculiar  consti- 
tution and  latent  affinities  of  its  individual  being. 
This  tendency  gradually  condenses  and  deepens  into 
a  sentiment,  pervading  the  man  with  a  love  of  those 
objects,  —  by  a  sweet  compulsion  ordering  his  ener- 
gies in  their  direction,  —  and  by  slow  degrees  invest- 
ing them,  through  a  process  of  imagination,  with  the 
attribute  of  beauty,  and,  through  a  process  of  reason, 
investing  the  purpose  with  which  he  pursues  them 
with  the  attribute  of  intelligence.  The  object  dilates 
as  the  mind  assimilates  and  the  nature  moves,  so  that 
every  step  in  this  advance  from  mere  emotion  to 
vivid  insight  is  a  building  up  of  the  faculties  which 
each  onward  movement  evokes  and  exercises,  —  sen- 
timent, imagination,  reason  increasing  their  power  and 
enlarging  their  scope  with  each  impetus  that  speeds 
them  on  to  their  bright  and  beckoning  goal.  Then, 
when  the  individual  has  reached  his  full  mental  stat- 


78  IKTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

ure,  and  come  in  direct  contact  with  the  object,  then, 
only  then,  does  he  "pluck  out  the  heart  of  its  mys- 
tery" in  one  of  those  lightning-like  acts  of  thought 
which  we  call  combination,  invention,  discovery.  There 
is  no  luck,  no  accident,  in  all  this.  Nature  does  not 
capriciously  scatter  her  secrets  as  golden  gifts  to  lazy 
pets  and  luxurious  darlings,  but  imposes  tasks  when 
she  presents  opportunities,  and  uplifts  him  whom  she 
would  inform.  The  apple  that  she  drops  at  the  feet 
of  Newton  is  but  a  coy  invitation  to  follow  her  to 
the  stars. 

Now  this  living  process  of  developing  manhood  and 
building  up  mind,  while  the  person  is  on  the  trail  of 
a  definite  object  of  intelligence,  is  in  continual  dan- 
ger of  being  devitalized  into  a  formal  process  of  mere 
acquisition,  which,  though  it  may  make  students 
prodigies  of  memory,  will  be  sure  to  leave  them  lit- 
tle men.  Their  thoughts  will  be  the  attaches^  not  the 
offspring,  of  their  minds.  They  will  have  a  bowing 
acquaintance  with  many  truths,  without  being  admitted 
to  the  familiarity  of  embracing  or  shaking  hands  with 
one.  If  they  have  native  stamina  of  animal  consti- 
tution, they  may  become  men  of  passions  and  opinions, 
but  they  never  will  become  men  of  sentiments  and 
ideas ;  they  may  know  the  truth  as  it  is  about  a  thing, 
and  support  it  with  acrid   and  wrangling   dogmatism, 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  79 

but  they  never  will  know  the  truth  as  it  is  in  the 
thing,  and  support  it  with  faith  and  insight.  And  the 
moment  they  come  into  collision  with  a  really  live 
man,  they  will  find  their  souls  inwardly  wither,  and 
their  boasted  acquisitions  fall  away,  before  one  glance 
of  his  irradiating  intelligence  and  one  stroke  of  his 
smiting  will.  If,  on  the  contrary,  they  are  guided 
by  good  or  great  sentiments,  which  are  the  souls  of 
good  or  great  ideas,  these  sentiments  will  be  sure  to 
organize  all  the  capacity  there  is  in  them  into  posi- 
tive intellectual  character ;  but  let  them  once  divorce 
love  from  their  occupations  in  life,  and  they  will  find 
that  labor  will  degenerate  into  drudgery,  and  drudg- 
ery will  weaken  the  power  to  labor,  and  weakness,  as 
a  last  resort,  will  intrench  itself  in  pretence  and  de- 
ception. If  they  are  in  the  learned  professions,  they 
will  become  tricksters  in  law,  quacks  in  medicine,  for- 
malists in  divinity,  though  regular  practitioners  in  all ; 
and  clients  will  be  cheated,  and  patients  will  be  poi- 
soned, and  parishioners  will  be  —  we  dare  not  say 
what !  —  thoucrh  all  the  colleojes  in  the  universe  had 
showered  on  them  their  diplomas.  "  To  be  weak  is 
miserable  "  :  Milton  wrested  that  secret  from  the  Devil 
himself!  —  but  what  shall  we  say  of  those  whose 
weakness  has  subsided  from  misery  into  complacency, 
and  who  feel  all  the  moral  might  of  their  being  hour- 


80  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

ly  rust  and  decay,  with  the  most  amiable  indifference 
and  lazy  content  with  dissolution? 

Now  this  weakness  is  a  mental  and  moral  sickness, 
pointing  the  way  to  mental  and  moral  death.  It  has 
its  source  in  a  violation  of  that  law  which  makes  the 
health  of  the  mind  depend  on  its  activity  being  di- 
rected to  an  object.  When  directed  on  itself,  it  be- 
comes fitful  and  moody;  and  moodiness  generates 
morbidness,  and  morbidness  misanthropy,  and  misan- 
thropy self-contempt,  and  self-contempt  begins  the 
work  of  self-dissolution.  Why,  every  sensible  man 
will  despise  himself,  if  he  concentrates  his  attention 
on  that  important  personage!  The  joy  and  confi- 
dence of  activity  come  from  its  being  fixed  and  fast- 
ened on  things  external  to  itself.  "The  human 
heart,"  says  Luther,  —  and  we  can  apply  the  remark 
as  well  to  the  human  mind,  — "  is  like  a  millstone  in 
a  mill ;  when  you  put  wheat  under  it,  it  turns,  and 
grinds,  and  bruises  the  wheat  into  flour;  if  you  put 
no  wheat  in,  it  still  grinds  on,  but  then  it  is  itself  it 
grinds,  and  slowly  wears  away."  Now  activity  for 
an  object,  which  is  an  activity  that  constantly  in- 
creases the  power  of  acting,  and  keeps  the  mind  glad, 
fresh,  vigorous,  and  young,  has  three  deadly  enemies, 
—  intellectual  indolence,  intellectual  conceit,  and  in- 
tellectual fear.  We  will  say  a  few  words  on  the 
operation  of  this  triad  of  malignants. 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  81 

Montaigne  relates,  that,  while  once  walking  in  the 
fields,  he  was  accosted  by  a  beggar  of  Herculean 
frame,  who  solicited  alms.  "Are  you  not  ashamed 
to  beg  ? "  said  the  philosopher,  with  a  frown,  — 
"  you  who  are  so  palpably  able  to  work  ? "  "  O, 
sir,"  was  the  sturdy  knave's  drawling  rejoinder,  "  if 
you  only  knew  how  lazy  I  am  ! "  Herein  is  the  whole 
philosophy  of  idleness ;  and  we  are  afraid  that  many 
a  student  of  good  natural  capacity  slips  and  slides 
from  thought  into  revery,  and  from  revery  into  ap- 
athy, and  from  apathy  into  incurable  indisposition  to 
think,  with  as  much  sweet  unconsciousness  of  degra- 
dation as  Montaigne's  mendicant  evinced ;  and  at  last 
hides  from  himself  the  fact  of  his  imbecility  of  action, 
somewhat  as  Sir  James  Herring  accounted  for  the 
fact  that  he  could  not  rise  early  in  the  morning : 
he  could,  he  said,  make  up  his  mind  to  it,  but  could 
not  make  up  his  body. 

"He  who  eats  with  the  Devil,"  says  the  proverb, 
"  has  need  of  a  long  spoon  " ;  and  he  who  domesti- 
cates this  pleasant  vice  of  indolence,  and  allows  it  to 
nestle  near  his  will,  has  need  of  a  long  head.  Or- 
dinary minds  may  well  be  watchful  of  its  insidious 
approaches  when  great  ones  have  mourned  over  its 
enfeebling  effects;  and  the  subtle  indolence  that  stole 
over   the   powers   of  Mackintosh,   and   gradually   im« 

■  4*  F 


\ 


82         INTELLECTUAL  CHARACTER. 

paired  the  productiveness  even  of  Goethe,  may  well 
scare  intellects  of  less  natural  grasp,  and  imaginations 
of  less  instinctive  creativeness.  Every  step,  indeed, 
of  the  student's  progress  calls  for  energy  and  effort,, 
and  every  step  is  beset  by  some  soft  temptation  to 
abandon  the  task  of  developing  power  for  the  de- 
light of  following  impulse.  The  appetites,  for  exam- 
ple, instead  of  being  bitted,  and  bridled,  and  trained 
into  passions,  and  sent  through  the  intellect  to  quick 
en,  sharpen,  and  intensify  its  activity,  are  allowed  to 
take  their  way  unmolested  to  their  own  objects  of 
sense,  and  drag  the  mind  down  to  their  own  sensual 
level.  Sentiment  decays,  the  vision  fades,  faith  in 
principles  departs,  the  moment  that  appetite  rules. 
On  the  closing  doors  of  that  "  sensual  stye,"  as  over 
the  gate  of  Dante's  hell,  be  it  written:  "Let  those 
who  enter  here  leave  hope  behind." 
"^But  a  more  refined  operation  of  this  pestilent  in- 
dolence is  its  way  of  infusing  into  the  mind  the  delu- 
sive belief  that  it  can  attain  the  objects  of  activity 
without  its  exercise.  Under  this  illusion,  men  expect 
to  grow  wise,  as  men  who  gamble  in  stocks  expect 
to  grow  rich,  —  by  chance,  and  not  by  work.  They 
invest  in  mediocrity  in  the  confident  hope  that  it 
will  go  many  hundred  per  cent  above  par;  and  so 
shockinor    has    been   the   inflation   of  the   intellectual 


INTELLECTUAL   CHAIIACTER.  88 

ewn^jtxc^  oi  late  years,  that  this  speculation  of  indo- 
lence sometimes  partially  succeeds.  But  a  revulsion 
comes, — and  then  brass  has  to  make  a  break-neck 
.  descent  to  reach  its  proper  level  below  gold.  There 
ai*e  others  whom  indolence  deludes  by  some  trash 
about  "fits"  of  inspiration,  for  whose  Heaven-sent 
spasms  they  are  humbly  to  wait.  There  is,  it  seems, 
a  lucky  thought  somewhere  in  the  abyss  of  possibil- 
ity, which  is  somehow,  at  some  time,  to  step  out  of 
essence  into  substance,  and  take  up  its  abode  in  their 
capacious  minds,  —  dutifully  kept  unoccupied  in  order 
that  the  expected  celestial  visitor  may  not  be  crowded 
for  room.  Chance  is  to  make  them  king,  and  chance 
to  crown  them  without  their  stir !  There  are  others 
still,  who,  while  sloth  is  sapping  the  primitive  energy 
of  their  natures,  expect  to  scale  the  fortresses  of 
knowledge  by  leaps  and  not  by  ladders,  and  who 
cotmt  on  success  in  such  perilous  gymnastics,  not  by 
the  discipline  of  the  athlete,  but  by  the  dissipation 
of  the  idler.  Indolence,  indeed,  is  never  at  a  loss  for 
a  smooth  lie  or  delicious  sophism  to  justify  inaction, 
and,  in  our  day,  has  rationalized  it  into  a  philosophy 
of  the  mind,  and  idealized  it  into  a  school  of  poetry, 
and  organized  it  into  a  "  hospital  of  incapables."  It 
promises  you  the  still  ecstasy  of  a  divine  repose, 
while  it  lures   you   surely  down  into  the  vacant  dul- 


84  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

ness  of  inglorious  sloth.  It  provides  a  primrose  path 
to  stagnant  pools,  to  an  Arcadia  of  thistles,  and  a 
Paradise  of  mud. 

But  in  a  mind  of  any  primitive  power,  intellectual 
indolence  is  sure  to  generate  intellectual  conceit,  — 
a  little  Jack  Horner,  that  ensconces  itself  in  lazy 
heads,  and,  while  it  dwarfs  every  power  to  the  level 
of  its  own  littleness,  keeps  vociferating,  "  What  a  great 
man  am  I ! "  It  is  the  essential  vice  of  this  glib  imp 
of  the  mind,  even  when  it  infests  large  intellects, 
that  it  puts  Nature  in  the  possessive  case,  —  labels 
all  its  inventions  and  discoveries  "  My  truth,"  —  and 
moves  about  the  realms  of  art,  science,  and  letters 
in  a  constant  fear  of  having  its  pockets  picked. 
Think  of  a  man  having  vouchsafed  to  him  one  of 
those  awful  glimpses  into  the  mysteries  of  creation 
which  should  be  received  with  a  shudder  of  prayer- 
ful joy,  and  taking  the  gracious  boon  with  a  smirk 
of  all-satisfied  conceit!  One  page  in  what  Shake- 
speare calls  "  Nature's  infinite  book  of  secrecy  "  flies 
a  moment  open  to  his  eager  gaze,  and  he  hears  the 
rustling  of  the  myriad  leaves  as  they  close  and  clasp, 
only  to  make  his  spirit  more  abject,  his  vanity  more 
ravenous,  his  hatred  of  rivals  more  rancorous  and 
mean.  That  grand  unselfish  love  of  truth,  and  joy 
in  its  discovery,  by  whomsoever  made,  which  charac- 


INTEU.ECTUAL   CHARACTER.  85 

teriee  the  true  seeker  and  seer  of  science  and  creative 
art,  alone  can  keep  the  mind  alive  and  alert,  alone 
can  make  the  possession  of  truth  a  means  of  elevat- 
ing and  purifying  the  man. 

But  if  this  conceit,  in  powerful  natures,  tends  to 
belittle  character,  and  eat  into  and  consume  the  very 
faculties  whose  successful  exercise  creates  it,  its  slyly 
insinuated  venom  works  swifter  and  deadlier  on  youth 
and  inexperience.  The  ordinary  forms  of  conceit,  it 
is  true,  cannot  well  flourish  in  any  assemblage  of 
young  men,  whose  plain  interest  it  is  to  undeceive 
all  self-deception  and  quell  every  insurrection  of  in- 
dividual vanity,  and  who  soon  understand  the  art  of 
burning  the  nonsense  out  of  an  offending  brother  by 
caustic  ridicule  and  slow-roasting  sarcasm.  But  there 
is  danger  of  mutual  deception,  springing  from  a  com- 
mon belief  in  a  false  but  attractive  principle  of  cul- 
ture. The  mischief  of  intellectual  conceit  in  our  day 
consists  in  its  arresting  mental  growth  at  the  start 
by  stuffing  the  mind  with  the  husks  of  pretentious 
generalities,  which,  while  they  impart  no  vital  power 
and  convey  no  real  information,  give  seeming  enlarge- 
ment to  thought,  and  represent  a  seeming  opulence 
of  knowledge.  The  deluded  student,  who  picks  up 
thes3  ideas  in  masquerade  at  the  rag-fairs  and  old- 
clothes    shops  of  philosophy,  thinks   he    has   the   key 


80  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

to  all  secrets  and  the  solvent  of  all  problems,  when 
he  really  has  no  experimental  knowledge  of  anything, 
and  dwindles  all  the  more  for  every  juiceless,  unnu- 
(ritious  abstraction  he  devours.  Though  famished  for 
the  lack  of  a  morsel  of  the  true  mental  food  of  facts 
and  ideas,  he  still  swaggeringly  despises  all  relative 
information  in  his  ambition  to  clutch  at  absolute  truth, 
and  accordingly  goes  directly  to  ultimates  by  the  short 
cuts  of  cheap  generalities.  Why,  to  be  sure,  should 
he,  who  can,  Napoleon-like,  march  straight  on  to  the 
interior  capital,  submit,  Marlborough-like,  to  the 
drudgery  of  besieging  the  frontier  fortresses  ?  Why 
should  he,  w^ho  can  throw  a  girdle  of  generalization 
round  the  universe  in  less  than  forty  minutes,  stoop 
to  master  details?  And  this  easy  and  sprightly  am- 
plitude of  understanding,  which  consists  not  in  includ- 
ing but  in  excluding  all  relative  facts  and  principles, 
he  calls  comprehensiveness ;  the  mental  decrepitude  it 
occasions  he  dignifies  with  the  appellation  of  repose  ; 
and,  on  the  strength  of  comprehensiveness  and  repose, 
he  is  of  course  qualified  to  take  his  seat  beside  Shake- 
speare, and  chat  cosily  with  Bacon,  and  wink  know- 
ingly at  Goethe,  and  startle  Leibnitz  with  a  slap  on 
the  shoulder,  —  the  true  Eed-Republican  sign  of  liberty 
in  manners,  equality  in  power,  and  fraternity  in  ideas ! 
These  men,  to  be  sure,  have  a  way  of  saying  things 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  87 

which  he  has  not  yet  caught;  but  then  their  wide- 
reaching  thoughts  are  his  as  well  as  theirs.  Imitating 
the  condescension  of  some  contemporary  philosophers 
of  the  Infinite,  he  graciously  accepts  Christianity  and 
patronizes  the  idea  of  Deity,  though  he  gives  you  to 
understand  that  he  could  easily  pitch  a  generalization 
outside  of  both.  And  thus,  mistaking  his  slab-si ded- 
ness  for  many-sidedness,  and  forgetting  that  there  is 
no  insight  without  force  to  back  it,  —  bedizened  in 
conceit  and  magnificent  in  littleness,  —  he  is  thrown 
on  society,  walking  in  a  vain  show  of  knowledge,  and 
doomed  to  be  upset  and  trampled  on  by  the  first 
brawny  concrete  Fact  he  stumbles  against.  A  true 
method  of  culture  makes  drudgery  beautiful  by  pre-  ^ 
senting  a  vision  of  the  object  to  which  it  leads ;  — 
beware  of  the  conceit  that  dispenses  with  it!  How 
much  better  it  is  to  delve  for  a  little  solid  knowledge, 
and  be  sure  of  that,  than  to  be  a  proper  target  for 
such  a  sarcasm  as  a  great  statesman  once  shot  at  a 
glib  advocate,  who  was  saying  nothing  with  great 
fluency  and  at  great  length  !  "•  Who,"  he  asked,  "  is 
this  self-sufiicient,  all-sufficient,  insufficient  man  ? " 

Idleness  and  Conceit,  however,  are 'not  more  op- 
posed to  that  out-springing,  reverential  activity  which 
makes  the  person  forget  himself  in  devotion  to  hia 
objects,  than  Fear.     A  bold  heart  in  a  sound  head,  — 


«0  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

that  is  the  condition  of  energetic  thinking,  of  the 
thought  that  thinks  round  things,  and  into  things,  and 
through  things  ;  but  fear  freezes  activity  at  its  inmost 
fountains.  "  There  is  nothing,"  says  Montaigne,  "  that 
I  fear  so  much  as  fear."  Indeed,  an  educated  man, 
who  creeps  along  with  an  apologetic  air,  cringing  to 
this  name  and  ducking  to  that  opinion,  aud  hoping 
that  it  is  not  too  presumptuous  in  him  to  beg  the  right 
to  exist,  —  why,  it  is  a  spectacle  piteous  to  gods  and 
hateful  to  men !  Yet  think  of  the  many  knots  of 
monitory  truisms  in  which  activity  is  likely  to  be 
caught  and  entangled  at  the  outset,  —  knots  which  a 
brave  purpose  will  not  waste  time  to  untie,  but  in- 
stantly cuts.  First,  there  is  the  nonsense  of  students 
killing  themselves  by  over-study,  —  some  few  instances 
of  which,  not  traceable  to  over-eating,  have  shielded 
the  shortcomings  of  a  million  idlers.  Next,  there  is 
the  fear  that  the  intellect  may  be  developed  at  the 
expense  of  the  moral  nature,  —  one  of  those  truths  in 
the  abstract  which  are  made  to  do  the  office  of  lies 
in  the  application,  and  which  are  calculated  not  so 
much  to  make  good  men  as  goodies,  —  persons  re- 
joicing in  an  equal  mediocrity  of  morals  and  mind, 
and  pertinent  examples  of  the  necessity  of  personal 
force  to  convert  moral  maxims  into  moral  might. 
The  truth  would  seem  to  be,  that  half  the  crimes  and 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  89 

sufferings  which  history  records  and  observaiion  fur- 
nishes are  directly  traceable  to  want  of  thought 
rather  than  to  bad  intention ;  and  in  regard  to  the 
other  half,  which  may  be  referred  to  the  remorseless 
'  selfishness  of  unsanctified  intelligence,  has  that  selfish- 
ness ever  had  more  valuable  allies  and  tools  than  the 
mental  torpor  that  cannot  think  and  the  conscientious 
stupidity  that  will  not?  Moral  laws,  indeed,  are  in- 
tellectual facts,  to  be  investigated  as  well  as  obeyed  ; 
and  it  is  not  a  blind  or  blear-eyed  conscience,  but  a 
conscience  blended  with  intelligence  and  consolidated 
with  character,  that  can  both  see  and  act. 

But  curtly  dismissing  the  fallacy,  that  the  moral 
and  spiritual  faculties  are  likely  to  find  a  sound  basis 
in  a  cowed  and  craven  reason,  we  come  to  a  form 
of  fear  that  practically  paralyzes  independent  thought 
more  than  any  other,  while  it  is  incompatible  with 
manliness  and  self-respect.  This  fear  is  compounded 
of  self-distrust  and  that  mode  of  vanity  w^hich  cowers 
beneath  the  invective  of  men  whose  applause  it  nei- 
ther courts  nor  values.  If  you  examine  critically  the 
two  raging  parties  of  conservatism  and  radicalism,  you 
will  find  that  a  goodly  number  of  their  partisans  are 
men  who  have  not  chosen  their  position,  but  have 
been  bullied  into  it,  —  men  who  see  clearly  enough 
that    both    parties    are    based    on    principles    almost 


90  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

equally  true  in  themselves,  almost  equally  false  by 
being  detached  from  their  mutual  relations.  But  then 
each  party  keeps  its  professors  of  intimidation  and 
stainers  of  character,  whose  business  it  is  to  deprive 
men  of  the  luxury  of  large  thinking,  and  to  drive  all 
neutrals  into  their  respective  ranks.  The  missiles 
hurled  from  one  side  are  disorganizer,  infidel,  disun- 
ionist,  despiser  of  law,  and  other  trumpery  of  that 
sort;  from  the  other  side,  the  no  less  effective  ones 
of  murderer,  dumb  dog,  traitor  to  humanity,  and  oth- 
er trumpery  of  that  sort ;  and  the  young  and  sensi- 
tive student  finds  it  difficult  to  keep  the  poise  of  his 
nature  amid  the  cross-fire  of  this  logic  of  fury  and 
rhetoric  of .  execration,  and  too  often  ends  in  joining 
one  party  from  fear,  or  the  other  from  the  fear  of 
being  thought  afraid.  The  probability  is,  that  the 
least  danger  to  his  mental  independence  will  proceed 
from  any  apprehension  he  may  entertain  of  what  are 
irreverently  styled  the  "  old  fogies " ;  for  if  Young 
America  goes,  on  at  its  present  headlong  rate,  there 
is  little  doubt  that  the  old  fogy  will  have  to  descend 
from  his  eminence  of  place,  become  an  object  of 
pathos  rather  than  terror,  and  be  compelled  to  make 
the  inquiring  appeal  to  his  brisk  hunters,  so  often 
made  to  himself  in  vain,  "Am  I  not  a  man  and  a 
brother?"     But,  with   whatever    association,   political 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  91 

or  moral,  the  thinker  may  connect  himself,  let  him 
go  in,  and  not  be  dragged  in  or  scared  in.  He 
certainly  can  do  no  good  to  himself,  his  country,  or 
his  race  by  being  the  slave  and  echo  of  the  lieads 
of  a  clique.  Besides,  as  most  organizations  are  con- 
stituted on  the  principles  of  a  sort  of  literary  social- 
ism, and  each  member  lives  and  trades  on  a  common 
capital  of  phrases,  there  is  danger  that  these  phrases 
may  decline  from  signs  into  substitutes  of  thought, 
and  both  intellect  and  character  evaporate  in  words. 
Thus,  a  man  may  be  a  Union  man  and  a  National 
man,  or  an  Anti-Slavery  man  and  a  Temperance  man 
and  a  Woman's-Rights  man,  and  still  be  very  little 
of  a  man.  There  is,  indeed,  no  more  ludicrous  sight 
than  to  see  Mediocrity,  perched  on  one  of  these  re- 
sounding adjectives,  strut  and  bluster,  and  give  it- 
self  braggadocio  airs,  and  dictate  to  all  quiet  men  its 
maxims  of  patriotism  or  morality,  and  all  the  while 
be  but  a  living  illustration  through  what  grandeurs 
of  opinion  essential  meanness  and  poverty  of  soul 
will  peer  and  peep  and  be  disclosed.  To  be  a  states- 
man or  reformer  requires  a  courage  that  dares  defy 
dictation  from  any  quarter,  and  a  mind  which  has 
come  in  direct  contact  with  the  great  inspiring  ideas 
of  country  and  humanity.  All  the  rest  is  spite,  and 
spleen,  and  cant,  and  conceit,  and  words. 


92  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

It  is  plain,  of  course,  that  every  man  of  large  and 
living  thought  will  naturally  sympathize  with  those 
great  social  movements,  informing  and  reforming, 
which  are  the  glory  of  the  age;  but  it  must  always 
be  remembered  that  the  grand  and  generous  senti- 
ments that  underlie  those  movements  demand  in  their 
fervid  disciple  a  corresponding  grandeur  and  generos- 
ity of  soul.  There  is  no  reason  why  his  philanthropy 
should  be  malignant  because  other  men's  conserva- 
tism may  be  stupid;  and  the  vulgar  insensibility  to 
the  rights  of  the  oppressed,  and  the  vulgar  scorn  of 
the  claims  of  the  wretched,  which  men  calling  them- 
selves respectable  and  educated  may  oppose  to  his 
own  warmer  feelings  and  nobler  principles,  should  be 
met,  not  with  that  invective  which  may  be  as  vulgar 
as  the  narrowness  it  denounces,  nor  always  with  that 
indignation  which  is  righteous  as  well  as  wrathful, 
but  with  that  awful  contempt  with  which  Magnanim- 
ity shames  meanness,  simply  by  the  irony  of  her 
lofty  example  and  the  sarcasm  of  her  terrible  si- 
lence. 

In  these  remarks,  which  we  trust  our  readers  have 
at  least  been  kind  enough  to  consider  worthy  of  an 
effort  of  patience,  we  have  attempted  to  connect  all 
genuine  intellectual  success  with  manliness  of  charac- 
ter;   have  endeavored  to  show  that  force  of  individ- 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  93 

ual  being  is  its  primary  condition  ;  that  this  force  is 
augmented  and  enriched,  or  weakened  and  impover- 
ished, according  as  it  is  or  is  not  directed  to  ap- 
propriate objects;  that  indolence,  conceit  and  fear 
present  continual  checks  to  this  going  out  of  the 
mind  into  glad  and  invigorating  communion  with  facts 
and  laws  ;  and  that  as  a  man  is  not  a  mere  bundle 
of  faculties,  but  a  vital  person,  whose  unity  pervades, 
vivifies,  and  creates  all  the  varieties  of  his  manifesta- 
tion, the  same  vices  which  enfeeble  and  deprave 
character  tend  to  enfeeble  and  deprave  intellect. 
But  perhaps  we  have  not  sufficiently  indicated  a  dis- 
eased state  of  consciousness,  from  which  most  intel- 
lectual men  have  suffered,  many  have  died,  and  all 
should  be  warned,  —  the  disease,  namely,  of  mental  dis- 
gust, the  sign  and  the  result  of  mental  debility.  Men- 
tal disgust  "  sickHes  o'er"  all  the  objects  of  thought, 
extinguishes  faith  in  exertion,  communicates  a  dull 
wretchedness  to  indolence  in  the  very  process  by 
which  it  makes  activity  impossible,  and  drags  into  its 
own  slough  of  despond,  and  discolors  with  its  own 
morbid  reveries,  the  objects  which  it  should  ardently 
seek  and  genially  assimilate.  It  sees  things  neither 
as  they  are,  nor  as  they  are  glorified  and  transfigured 
by  hope  and  health  and  faith ;  but,  in  the  apathy  of 
that   idling   introspection    which    betrays  a  genius  for 


94  INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER. 

misery,  it  pronounces  effort  to  be  vanity,  and  de- 
spairingly dismisses  knowledge  as  delusion.  "  De- 
spair," says  Donne,  "  is  the  damp  of  hell ;  rejoicing 
is  the  serenity  of  heaven." 

Now  contrast  this  mental  disgust,  which  proceeds 
from  mental  debility,  with  the  sunny  and  soul-lifting 
exhilaration  radiated  from  mental  vigor,  —  a  vigor 
which  comes  from  the  mind's  secret  consciousness 
that  it  is  in  contact  with  moral  and  spiritual  verities, 
and  is  partaking  of  the  rapture  of  their  immortal  life. 
A  spirit  earnest,  hopeful,  energetic,  inquisitive,  mak- 
ing its  mistakes  minister  to  wisdom,  and  converting 
the  obstacles  it  vanquishes  into  power,  —  a  spirit  in- 
spired by  a  love  of  the  excellency  and  beauty  of 
knowledge,  which  will  not  let  it  sleep,  —  such  a  spirit 
soon  learns  that  the  soul  of  joy  is  hid  in  the  austere 
form  of  Duty,  and  that  the  intellect  becomes  brighter, 
keener,  clearer,  more  buoyant,  and  more  efficient,  as 
it  feels  the  freshening  vigor  infused  by  her  monitions 
and  menaces,  and  the  celestial  calm  imparted  by  her 
soul-satisfying  smile.  In  all  the  professions  and  oc- 
cupations over  which  Intellect  holds  dominion,  the 
student  will  find  that  there  is  no  grace  of  character 
without  its  corresponding  grace  of  mind.  He  wil^ 
find  that  virtue  is  an  aid  to  insight;  that  good  and 
Bweet  affections  will  bear  a  harvest  of  pure  and  high 


INTELLECTUAL   CHARACTER.  95 

thoughts;  that  patience  will  make  the  intellect  per- 
sistent in  plans  which  benevolence  will  make  benefi- 
cent in  results  ;  that  the  austerities  of  conscience  will 
dictate  precision  to  statements  and  exactness  to  argu- 
ments ;  that  the  same  moral  sentiments  and  moral 
power  which  regulate  the  conduct  of  life  will  illumine 
the  path  and  stimulate  the  purpose  of  those  daring 
spirits  eager  to  add  to  the  discoveries  of  truth  and 
the  creations  of  art.  And  he  will  also  find  that  this 
purifying  interaction  of  spiritual  and  mental  forces  will 
give  the  mind  an  abiding  foundation  of  joy  for  its 
starts  of  rapture  and  flights  of  ecstasy;  —  a  joy  in 
whose  light  and  warmth,  languor  and  discontent  and 
depression  and  despair  will  be  charmed  away ;  —  a 
joy,  which  will  make  the  mind  large,  generous, 
hopeful,  aspiring,  in  order  to  make  life  beautiful  and 
sweet ;  —  a  joy,  in  the  words  of  an  old  divine,  "  which 
will  put  on  a  more  glorious  garment  above,  and  be 
joy  superinvested  in  glory ! " 


IV. 

HEROIC    CHARACTER. 

rXlHE  noblest  and  most  exhilarating  objects  of 
J-  human  contemplation  are  those  which  exhibit 
human  nature  in  its  exalted  aspects.  Our  hearts 
instinctively  throb  and  burn  in  sympathy  with  grand 
thoughts  and  brave  actions  radiated  from  great  char- 
acters ;  for  they  give  palpable  form  to  ideals  of  con- 
duct domesticated  in  all  healthy  imaginations,  and 
fulfil  prophecies  uttered  in  the  depths  of  all  aspiring 
souls.  They  are^  in  fact,  what  all  men  feel  they  ought 
to  be.  They  inspire  our  weakness  by  the  energy  of 
their  strength;  they  sting  our  pride  by  the  irony  of 
their  elevation.  Their  flights  of  thought  and  audaci- 
ties of  action,  which  so  provokingly  mock  our  wise 
^aws  and  proper  ways,  and  which  seem  to  cast  om- 
inous conjecture  on  the  sanity  of  their  minds,  cannot 
blind  us  to  the  fact  that  it  is  we  and  not  they  who 
ftre  unnatural ;  that  nature,  obstructed  in  common  men, 
twisted  into  unnatural  distortions,  and  only  now  and 
then  stuttering   into   ideas,  comes  out  in  them  freely, 


HEROIC   CHARACTER.  97 

harmoniously,  sublimely,  all  hinderances  burnt  away 
by  the  hot  human  heart  and  flaming  human  soul 
which  glow  unconsumed  within  them.  They  are,  in- 
deed, so  filled  with  the  wine  of  life,  so  charged  with 
the  electricity  of  mind,  —  they  have,  in  Fletcher's  fine 
extravagance,  "  so  much  man  thrust  into  them,"  —  that 
manhood  must  force  its  way  out,  and  demonstrate  its 
innate  grandeur  and  power. 

This  indestructible  manhood,  which  thus  makes  for 
itself  a  clear  and  clean  path  through  all  impediments, 
is  commonly  called  Heroism,  or  genius  in  action,  — 
genius  that  creatively  clothes  its  ascending  thoughts 
in  tough  thews  and  sinews,  uplifts  character  to  the 
level  of  ideas,  and  impassionates  soaring  imagination 
into  settled  purpose.  The  hero,  therefore,  with  his 
intelligence  all  condensed  into  will,  —  compelled  to 
think  in  deeds,  and  find  his  language  in  events, — 
his  creative  energy  spending  itself,  not  in  making  ep- 
ics, but  in  making  history,  —  and  who  thus  brings 
his  own  fiery  nature  into  immediate,  invigorating 
contact  with  the  nature  of  others,  without  the  medi- 
ation of  the  mist  of  words,  —  is,  of  course,  the  object 
both  of  heartier  love  and  of  fiercer  hatred  than  those 
men  of  genius  whose  threatening  thought  is  removed 
to  the  safe  ideal  distance  of  Art.  The  mean-minded, 
the  little-hearted,  and  the  pusillanimous  of  soul  in* 
s  « 


98  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

stinctivelj  recognize  him  as  their  personal  enemy  j 
are  scared  and  cowed  by  the  swift  sweep  of  his  dar- 
'  Ag  will,  and  wither  inwardly  as  they  feel  the  ominous 
glance  of  his  accusing  eyes ;  and  they  accordingly 
intrench  themselves  and  their  kind  in  economic  max- 
ims and  small  bits  of  detraction,  in  sneers,  suspicions, 
cavils,  scandals,  in  all  the  defences  by  which  malice 
and  stupidity  shut  out  from  themselves,  and  strive  to 
shut  out  from  others,  the  light  that  streams  from  a 
great  and  emancipating  nature.  We  must  clear  away 
all  this  brushwood  and  undergrowth  before  the  hero 
can  be  seen  in  his  full  proportions ;  and  this  will 
compel  us  to  sacrifice  remorselessly  to  him  that  type 
of  human  character  which  goes  under  the  name  of 
the   Sneak. 

The  fundamental  peculiarity  of  this  antithesis  and 
antagonist  of  the  hero  is  his  tendency  to  skulk  and 
evade  the  requirements  of  every  generous,  kindling, 
and  exalting  sentiment  which  the  human  heart  con- 
tains. He  has,  to  be  sure,  a  feeble  glimmer  of 
thought,  a  hesitating  movement  of  conscience,  a  sick 
ly  perception  that  he  exists  as  a  soul,  and  his  claim 
to  be  considered  a  man  must  therefore  be  reluctantly 
admitted;  but  his  soul  is  so  puny,  so  famine- wasted 
by  fasting  from  the  soul's  appropriate  diet,  that  he 
knows   of  its   existence  only  as  an  invalid  knows  of 


HEROIC   CHARACTER.  99 

the  existence  of  his  stomach,  —  by  its  qualms.  This 
soul,  however,  is  still  essentially  the  soul  of  a  sneak, 
and  its  chief  office  appears  to  be  to  give  malignity  to 
his  littleness,  by  weakly  urging  him  to  hate  all  who 
have  more.  This  rancor  of  his  has  an  inexpressible 
felicity  of  meanness,  which  analysis  toils  after  in  vain. 
His  patriotism,  his  morality,  his  religion,  his  philan- 
thropy, if  he  pretend  to  have  any  of  these  fine  things, 
are  all  infected  with  it,  lose  their  nature  in  its  pres- 
ence, and  dwindle  into  petty  tributaries  of  its  snarling 
venom  and  spleen.  It  is  compounded  of  envy,  fear, 
folly,  obstinacy,  malice,  —  all  of  them  bad  qualities, 
but  so  modified  in  him  by  the  extreme  limitation  of 
his  conceptions  and  the  utter  poltroonery  of  his  char- 
acter, that  we  may  well  hesitate  to  call  them  bad. 
He  is,  indeed,  too  small  a  creature  to  reach  even  the 
elevation  of  vice;  and  no  general  term  designating  a 
sin  can  be  applied  to  him  without  doing  injustice  to  the 
dignity  of  evil  and  the  respectabilities  of  the  Satanic. 

Mean  as  this  poisonous  bit  of  humanity  is,  he  still 
w^ields  a  wide  influence  over  opinion  by  creeping 
stealthily  into  the  recesses  of  other  and  larger  minds, 
and  using  their  powers  to  give  currency  to  his  sen- 
timents. He  thus  dictates  no  inconsiderable  portion 
of  the  biography,  criticism,  history,  politics,  and  belles 
lettres    in    general    circulation;    and,   by   a    cunning 


100  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

misuse  of  the  words  prudence  and  practical  wisaom, 
impudently  teaches  that  disinterestedness  is  selfishness 
in  disguise,  poetry  a  sham,  heroism  craft  or  insanity, 
religion  a  convenient  lie,  and  human  life  a  cultivated 
bog.  We  detect  his  venomous  spirit  in  all  those 
eminent  men  whose  abilities  are  exercised  to  degrade 
man  and  wither  up  the  springs  of  generous  action. 
Thus  Dean  Swift,  in  his  description  of  the  Yahoos, 
combines  the  sentiment  of  the  sneak  with  the  faculty 
of  the  satirist ;  Rochefoucauld,  in  his  "  Maxims,"  the 
sentiment  of  the  sneak  combined  with  the  faculty  of 
the  philosopher ;  and  Voltaire,  in  his  "» Pucelle,"  pre- 
sents a  more  hideous  combination  still  of  sneak  and 
poet. 

Having  thus  ruled  out  the  evidence  of  this  carica- 
ture and  caricaturist  of  humanity  against  the  reality 
of  the  heroic  element  in  man,  we  may  now  proceed 
to  its  analysis  and  description.  And  first,  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  state  that  all  vital  ideas  and  purposes  have 
their  beginning  in  sentiments.  Sentiment  is  the 
living  principle,  the  soul,  of  thought  and  volition, 
determining  the  direction,  giving  the  impetus,  and 
constituting  the  force,  of  faculties.  Heroism  is  no 
extempore  work  of  transient  impulse,  —  a  rocket  rush 
ing  fretfully  up  to  disturb  the  darkness  by  which, 
after  a  moment's    insulting    radiance,  it   is    ruthlessly 


HEROIC   CHARACTER.  101 

swallowed  up,  —  but  a  steady  fire,  which  darts  forth 
tongues  of  flame.  It  is  no  sparkling  epigram  of  ac- 
tion, but  a  luminous  epic  of  character.  It  first  ap- 
pears in  the  mind  as  a  mysterious  but  potent  senti- 
ment, working  below  consciousness  in  the  unsounded 
'depths  of  individual  being,  and  giving  the  nature  it 
inhabits  a  slow,  sure,  upward  tendency  to  the  noble 
and  exalted  in  meditation  and  action.  Growing  with 
the  celestial  nutriment  on  which  it  feeds,  and  gaining 
strength  as  it  grows,  it  gradually  condenses  into  con- 
scious sentiment.  This  sentiment  then  takes  the  form 
of  intelligence  in  productive  ideas,  and  the  form  of 
organization  in  heroic  character;  so  that,  at  the  end, 
heart,  intellect,  and  will  are  all  kindled  in  one  blaze, 
all  united  in  one  individuality,  and  all  gush  out 
in  one  purpose.  The  person  thus  becomes  a  living 
soul,  thinking  and  acting  with  the  rapidity  of  one  who 
feels  spiritual  existence,  with  the  audacity  of  one  who 
obeys  spiritual  instincts,  and  with  the  intelligence  of 
one  who  discerns  spiritual  laws.  There  is  no  break 
or  flaw  in  the  connection  between  the  various  parts 
of  his  nature,  but  a  vital  unity,  in  which  intellect 
seems  to  have  the  force  of  will,  and  will  the  insight 
and  foresight  of  intellect.  There  is  no  hesitation,  no 
stopping  half-way,  in  the  pursuit  of  his  lofty  aim, 
partly  because,  his   elevation  being   the   elevation  of 


102  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

nature,  he  is  not  perched  on  a  dizzy  peak  of  thought, 
but  is  established  on  a  table-land  of  character,  and 
partly  because  there  plays  round  the  object  he  seeks 
a  light  and  radiance  of  such  strange,  unearthly  lustre, 
that  his  heart,  smitten  with  love  for  its  awful  beauty, 
is  drawn  toward  it  by  an  irresistible  fascination. 
Disappointment,  discouragement,  obstacles,  drudgery, 
only  sting  his  energies  by  opposition  or  are  glorified 
to  his  imagination  as  steps ;  for  beyond  them  and 
through  them  is  the  Celestial  City  of  his  hopes, 
shining  clear  to  the  inner  eye  of  his  mind,  tempting, 
enticing,  urging  him  on  through  all  impediments,  by 
the  sweet,  attractive  force  of  its  visionary  charm ! 
The  eyes  of  such  men,  by  the  testimony  of  painters, 
always  have  the  expression  of  looking  into  distant 
space.  As  a  result  of  this  unwearied  spiritual  energy 
and  this  ecstatic  spiritual  vision  is  the  courage  of  the 
hero.  He  has  no  fear  of  death,  because  the  idea  of 
death  is  lost  in  his  intense  consciousness  of  life, — 
full,  rich,  exulting,  joyous,  lyrical  life,  —  which  ever 
asserts  the  immortality  of  mind,  because  it  feels  it- 
self immortal,  and  is  scornfully  indifferent  to  that 
drowsy  twilight  of  intellect  into  which  atfeeism  sends 
its  unsubstantial  spectres,  and  in  which  the  whole  flock 
of  fears,  terrors,  despairs,  weaknesses,  and  doubts 
«cattei    their  enfeebling  maxims  of  misanthropy,  and 


HEROIC    CHARACTER.  103 

insinuate  their  ghastly  temptations  to  suicide.  One 
ray  from  a  sunlike  soul  drives  them  gibbering  back 
to  their  parent  darkness  ;  for  ^  v  J    rj 

**  Whatever  crazy  sorrow  saith,     :./   /\>  >  "^  *     / 

No  life  that  breathes  with  human  breath     JlJ  f.j  ^ 
Hath  ever  truly  wished  for  ^eathQ*^    ^  ^  T*  y 

*"T  is  life  of  which  our  nerves  are  scant,        ~^   (.)  f  >  \  - 
0  life,  —  not  death, — for  which  we  pant,     •  -^  *  '  ^ 

More  life,  and  fuller,  that  we  want ! " 

This  life  of  the  soul,  which  is  both  light  and  heat, 
intelligence  and  power,  —  this  swift-ascending  instinct 
of  the  spirit  to  spiritual  ideas  and  laws,  —  this  bold 
committal  of  self  to  something  it  values  more  than 
all  the  interests  of  self,  —  attests  the  presence  of  the 
heroic  element  by  indicating  an  ideal  standard  of 
conduct.  Let  us  now  contemplate  it  in  the  scale  of 
moral  precedence,  according  as  it  fastens  its  upward 
glance  on  the  idea  of  glory,  or  country,  or  humanity, 
or  heaven.  This  will  lead  to  a  short  consideration 
of  the  hero  as  a  soldier,  as  a  patriot,  as  a  reformer, 
and  as  a  saint. 

In  viewing  the  hero  as  a  soldier,  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  the  first  great  difficulty  in  human 
life  is  to  rouse  men  from  the  abject  dominion  of 
selfishness,  laziness,  sensuality,  fear,  and  other  forms 
of   physical   existence   but   spiritual   death.     Fear   is 


104  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

the  paralysis  of  the  soul ;  and  nature,  preferring  an- 
archy to  imbecility,  lets  loose  the  aggressive  passions 
to  shake  it  off.  Hence  war,  which  is  a  rude  protest 
of  manhood  against  combining  order  with  slavery,  and 
repose  with  degradation.  As  long  as  it  is  a  passion, 
it  merely  illustrates  nature's  favorite  game  of  fighting 
one  vice  with  another;  but  in  noble  natures  the  pas- 
sion becomes  consecrated  by  the  heart  and  imagina- 
tion, acknowledges  an  ideal  aim,  and,  under  the 
inspiration  of  the  sentiment  of  honor,  inflames  the 
whole  man  with  a  love  of  the  dazzling  idea  of  glory. 
It  is  this  heroic  element  in  war  which  palliates  its 
enormities,  humanizes  its  horrors,  and  proves  the 
combatants  to  be  men,  and  not  tigers  and  wolves. 
Its  grand  illusions  —  fopperies  to  the  philosopher  and 
vices  to  the  moralist  —  are  realities  to  the  hero. 
Glory  feeds  his  heart's  hunger  for  immortality,  gives 
him  a  beautiful  disdain  of  fear,  puts  ecstasy  into  his 
courage  and  claps  wings  to  his  aspirations,  and  makes 
the  grim  battle-field,  with  its  crash  of  opposing  hosts 
and  the  deafening  din  of  its  engines  of  death,  as 
sweet  to  him 

"  As  ditties  highly  penned, 
Sung  by  a  fair  queen  in  a  summer*s  bower, 
With  ravishing  division,  to  her  lute." 

This  splendid  fanaticism,  while  it  has  infected  such 


HEROIC   CHARACTER.  105 

fine  aiid  pure  spirits  as  Bayard  and  Sir  Piiilip  Sid- 
ney, and  thus  allied  itself  with  exalted  virtues,  has 
not  altogether  denied  its  hallowing  light  to  men 
stained  with  Satanic  vices.  In  Hannibal,  in  Caesar, 
in  Wallenstein,  in  Napoleon,  in  all  commanders  of 
gigantic  abilities  as  well  as  heroic  sentiments,  and 
whose  designs  stretch  over  an  extended  field  of  op- 
erations, the  idea  of  glory  dilates  to  the  vastness  of 
their  desires,  and  is  pursued  with  a  ruthlessness  of 
intellect  which,  unchecked  by  moral  principle,  is  in- 
different to  all  considerations  of  truth  and  humanity 
which  block  the  way  to  success.  The  ravenous  hun- 
ger for  universal  dominion  which  characterizes  such 
colossal  spirits,  though  criminal,  is  still  essentially 
ideal,  and  takes  hold  of  what  is  immortal  in  evil. 
Such  men  are  the  unhallowed  poets  and  artists  of 
action,  fiercely  impatient  to  shape  the  world  into  the 
form  of  their  imperious  conceptions,  —  like  the  usurp- 
ing god  of  the  old  Greek  mythology,  who  devoured 
all  existing  natures,  and  swallowed  all  the  pre-exist- 
ing elements  of  things,  and  then  produced  the  world 
anew  after  the  pattern  of  his  own  tyrannous  ideas. 
But  their  crimes  partake  of  i-he  greatness  of  their 
characters,  and  cannot  be  imitated  by  nc^ilefactors  of 
a  lower  grade. 

The  courage  of  the  devotee  of  glorj   has  in  it  a» 
5* 


106  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

element  of  rapture  which  resembles  the  fine  frenzy 
of  the  poet.  The  hero,  indeed,  has  such  prodigious 
energy  and  fulness  of  soul,  possesses  so  quick,  keen, 
and  burning  a  sense  of  life,  that  when  great  perils 
call  for  almost  superhuman  efforts,  he  exhibits  flashes 
of  valor  which  transcend  all  bodily  limitations ;  for  he 
feels,  in  the  fury  and  delirium  of  imaginative  ecstasy, 
as  if  his  body  were  all  ensouled,  and,  though  riddled 
with  bullets,  would  not  consent  to  death.  It  was 
this  sense  which  made  Csesar  rush  singly  on  the 
Spanish  ranks,  and  carried  Napoleon  across  the 
Bridge  of  Lodi.  "  I  saw  him,"  says  Demosthenes,  in 
speakmg  of  Philip  of  Macedon,  "  though  covered  with 
wounds,  his  eye  struck  out,  his  collar-bone  broke, 
maimed,  both  in  his  hands  and  feet,  still  resolutely 
rush  into  the  midst  of  dangers,  and  ready  to  deliver 
up  to  Fortune  any  part  of  his  body  she  might  desire, 
provided  he  might  live  honorably  and  gloriously  with 
the  rest."  It  was  this  sense  also  that  forced  out  of 
the  cold  heart  of  Robespierre  the  only  heroic  utter- 
ance of  his  life.  In  his  last  struggle  in  the  Conven- 
tion, surrounded  by  enemies  eager  for  his  blood,  and 
his  endeavors  to  speak  in  his  own  defence  drowned 
by  the  clamors  of  the  assembly,  desperation  infused 
eloquence  even  into  him,  and  he  cried  out,  in  a  voice 
heard  above  everything  else,  "  President  of  Assassins ! 
hear  me ! " 


HEROIC   CHARACTER.  107 

The  hero,  also,  when  his  inspiration  is  a  thought, 
has  a  kind  of  faith  that  the  blind  messengers  of 
death  hurtling  round  h«ni  will  respect  him  who  rep- 
resents in  his  person  the  majesty  of  an  idea.  .  "  The 
ball  that  is  to  hit  me,'*  said  Napoleon,  "  has  not  yet 
been  cast " ;  and  this  confidence  of  great  generals  in 
a  tacit  understanding  between  them  and  the  bullets 
was  quaintly  expressed  by  the  brave  Dessaix  in  the 
presentiment  of  death  which  came  over  him  on  the 
morning  of  the  battle  of  Marengo.  "It  is  a  long 
time,"  he  said  to  one  of  his  aides-de-camp,  "  since  I 
have  fought  in  Europe,  ^i^he  bullets  won't  know  me 
again.     Something  will  happen." 

The  audacity  and  energy  of  the  hero  likewise 
stimulate  his  intelligence,  brightening  and  condensing 
rather  than  confusing  his  mind.  The  alertness,  saga- 
city, and  coolness  of  his  thinking  are  never  more  ap- 
parent than  in  th©  frenzy  of  conflict.  At  the  terrible 
naval  battle  of  the  Baltic,  Nelson,  after  the  engage- 
ment had  lasted  four  hours,  found  that  an  armistice 
was  necessary  to  save  his  fleet  from  destruction,  and, 
in  the  heat  and  din  of  the  cannonade,  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  Crown  Prince  of  Denmark  proposing  one. 
Not  a  minute  was  to  be  lost,  and  an  officer  hastily 
handed  him  a  wafer  to  seal  it.  But  Nelson  called 
for    a    candle     and    deliberately    sealed    it    in    wax. 


108  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

"This  is  no  time,"  he  said,  *' to  appear  hurried  and 
informal."  Gonsalvo,  the  great  captain,  in  one  of  his 
Italian  battles,  had  his  powder  magazine  blown  up 
by  the  enemy's  first  discharge.  His  soldiers,  smitten 
by  sudden  panic,  paused  and  turned,  but  he  instantly 
rallied' them  with  the  exclamation,  "My  brave  boys, 
the  victory  is  ours!  Heaven  tells  us  by  this  signal 
that  we  shall  have  no  further  need  of  our  artillery." 
Napoleon  was  famous  for  combining  daring  with 
shrewdness,  and  was  politic  even  in  his  fits  of  rage. 
In  desperate  circumstances  he  put  on  an  air  of  reck- 
less confidence,  which  cowed  the  spirits  of  his  adver- 
saries, and  almost  made  them  disbelieve  the  evidence, 
of  their  senses.  Thus  he  induced  the  Austrian  am- 
bassador to  commit  the  folly  of  signing  the  treaty  of 
Campo  Formio,  by  a  furious  threat  of  instant  war, 
which,  if  declared  at  that  time,  would  probably  have 
resulted  to  Austria's  advantage.  Seizing  a  precious 
vase  of  porcelain,  a  gift  to  the  ambassador  from  the 
Empress  Catherine,  he  exclaimed  passionately,  "The 
die  is  then  cast;  the  truce  broken;  war  declared. 
But  mark  my  words !  before  the  end  of  autumn  I  will 
break  in  pieces  your  monarchy  as  I  now  destroy  this 
porcelain  " ;  and,  dashing  it  into  fragments,  he  bowed 
and  retired.  The  treaty  was  signed  the  next  day. 
But  perhaps    the  grandest  example  in  modern  hi» 


HEKOIC    CHARACTER.  109 

tory  of  that  audacity  which  combines  all  the  physical, 
civic,  and  mental  elements  of  courage  is  found  in 
Napoleon's  return  from  Elba,  and  triumphant  pro- 
gress to  Paris.  The  world  then  beheld  the  whole 
organization  of  a  monarchy  melt  away  like  a  piece 
of  frost-work  in  the  sun,  before  a  person  and  a  name. 
Every  incident  in  that  march  is  an  epical  stroke. 
He  throws  himself  unhesitatingly  on  the  Napoleon 
in  every  man  and  mass  of  men  he  meets,  and  Napo- 
leonism  instinctively  recognizes  and  obeys  its  master. 
On  approaching  the  regiment  at  Grenoble,  the  officers 
in  command  gave  the  order  to  fire.  Advancing  con- 
fidently, within  ten  steps  of  the  levelled  muskets, 
and  baring  his  breast,  he  uttered  the  well-known 
words,  "  Soldiers  of  the  Fifth  Regiment,  if  there  is 
one  among  you  who  would  kill  his  Emperor,  let  him 
do  it !  here  I  am ! "  The  whole  march  was  worthy 
such  a  commencement,  profound  as  intelligence,  irre- 
sistible as  destiny. 

But  the  test  of  ascension  in  heroism  is  not  found 
in  faculty,  but  in  the  sentiment  which  directs  the 
faculty;  the  love  of  glory,  therefore,  must  yield  the 
palm  in  disinterestedness  of  sentiment  to  the  love  of 
coinitry,  and  the  hero  as  a  patriot  take  precedence 
of  the  hero  as  a  soldier. 

The  great  conservative   instinct  of  patriotism  is  in 


110  HEROIC    CHARACTER. 

all  vigorous  communities,  and  under  its  impulse 
whole  nations  sometimes  become  heroic.  Even  its 
prejudices  are  elements  of  spiritual  strength,  and 
most  of  the  philosophic  chatterers  who-  pretend  to  be 
above  them  are,  in  reality,  below  them.  Thus  the 
old  Hollander,  who  piously  attempted  to  prove  that 
Dutch  was  the  language  spoken  by  Adam  in  Para- 
dise, and  the  poor  Ethiopians,  who  believed  that  God 
made  their  sands  and  deserts  in  person,  and  contempt- 
uously left  the  rest  of  the  world  to  be  manufactured 
by  his  angels,  were  in  a  more  hopeful  condition 
of  manhood  than  is  the  cosmopolitan  coxcomb,  who, 
from  the  elevation  of  a  mustache  and  the  comprehen- 
siveness of  an  imperial,  lisps  elegant  disdain  of  all 
narrow  national  peculiarities.  The  great  drawback 
on  half  the  liberality  of  the  world  is  its  too  fre- 
quent connection  with  indifference  or  feebleness. 
When  we  apply  to  men  the  tests  of  character,  we 
often  find  that  the  amiable  gentleman,  who  is  so 
blandly  superior  to  the  prejudices  of  sect  and  coun- 
try, and  who  clasps  the  whole  world  in  the  mild 
embrace  of  his  commonplaces,  becomes  a  furious  bigot 
when  the  subject-matter  rises  to  the  importance  of 
one-and-sixpence,  and  the  practical  question  is  wheth- 
er he  or  you  shall  pay  it.  The  revenge  of  the  little 
in  soul  and  the  weak  in  will  is  to  apply  to  the  strong 


HEROIC   CHARACTER.  Ill 

in  character  the  tests  of  criticism ;  and  then  your  un- 
mistakable do-nothing  can  prattle  prettily  in  the  pa- 
tois of  the  giants,  and,  with  a  few  abstract  maxims, 
that  any  boy  can  grasp,  will  smirkingly  exhibit  to 
you  the  limitations  in  thought  of  such  poor  creatures 
as  Miltiades,  Leonidas,  Fabius,  Scipio,  of  Wallace, 
Bruce,  Tell,  Hofer,  of  Joan  of  Arc,  Henry  IV., 
Turgot,  Lafayette,  of  De  Witt  and  William  of  Or- 
ange, of  Grattan,  Curran,  and  Emmett,  of  Pym, 
Hampden,  Russell,  Sidney,  Marvell,  of  Washington, 
Adams,  Henry,  Hamilton,  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
heroes  of  patriotism.  The  idea  these  men  represent 
may,  doubtless,  be  easily  translated  into  a  truism,  and 
this  truism  be  easily  overtopped  by  some  truism  more 
general;  but  their  faith,  fortitude,  self-devotion,  their 
impassioned,  all-absorbing  love  of  country,  are,  unhap- 
pily, in  the  nature  of  paradoxes. 

Patriotism,  indeed,  when  it  rises  to  the  heroic 
standard,  is  a  positive  love  of  country,  and  it  will  do 
all  and  sacrifice  all  which  it  is  in  the  nature  of  love 
Ko  do  and  to  sacrifice  for  its  object.  It  is  heroic  on- 
ly when  it  is  lifted  to  the  elevation  of  the  ideal, — 
when  it  is  so  hallowed  by  the  affections  and  glorified 
by  the  imagination  that  the  whole  being  of  the  man 
is  thrilled  and  moved  by  its  inspiration,  and  drudgery 
becomes  beautiful,    and    suffering    noble,    and    death 


112  ^  HEROIC    CHARACTER. 

sweet,  in  the  country's  service.  No  mere  intelligent 
regard  for  a  nation's  material  interests,  or  pride  in 
its  extended  dominion,  is  sufficient  to  constitute  a 
patriot  hero.  It  is  the  sentiment  and  the  idea  of 
the  country,  "felt  in  his  blood  and  felt  along  his 
heart " ;  it  is  this  which  withdraws  him  from  self,  and 
identifies  him  with  the  nation ;  which  enlarges  his 
personality  to  the  grandeur  and  greatness  of  the  na- 
tional personality ;  which  makes  national  thoughts  and 
national  passions  beat  and  burn  in  his  own  heart  and 
brain,  until  at  last  he  feels  every  wrong  done  to  his 
country  as  a  personal  wrong,  and  every  wrong  com- 
mitted by  his  country  as  a  sin  for  which  he  is  per- 
sonally responsible.  Such  men  are  nations  Individ* 
ualized.  They  establish  magnetic  relations  with  what 
is  latent  in  all  classes,  command  all  the  signs  of  that 
subtle  freemasonry  which  brings  men  into  instant 
communion  with  the  people,  and  are  ever  impatient 
and  dangerous  forces  in  '  a  nation  until  they  reach 
their  rightful,  predestined  position  at  its  head.  "  As 
in  nature,"  says  Bacon,  "  things  move  more  violent- 
ly to  their  place  and  calmly  in  their  place,  so  vir- 
tue in  ambition  is  violent,  in  authority  settled  and 
calm."  As  long  as  Chatham  is  out  of  office,  Eng- 
land must  be  torn  with  factions,  in  his  furious  endeav- 
ors  to   upset   the   pretenders    to    statesmanship    who 


HEROIC   CHARACTER.  113 

occupy  the  official  stations;  but,  the  moment  he  is 
minister,  the  nation  comes  to  self-consciousness  in 
him,  and  acts  with  the  promptitude,  energy,  and  unity 
of  a  great  power.  Though  his  body  was  shattered 
and  worn  with  illness,  his  spirit  —  the  true  spirit  of 
the  nation  —  was  felt  at  once  in  every  department 
of  the  public  service ;  timidity,  hesitation,  intrigue, 
mediocrity,  disappeared  before  his  audacious  intelli- 
gence ;  and  India,  America,  the  continent  of  Europe, 
soon  felt  the  full  force  of  the  latent  energies  of  the  na- 
tional soul.  The  word  impossible  was  hateful  to  Chat- 
ham, as  it  is  to  all  vigorous  natures  who  recognize 
the  latent,  the  reserved  power,  in  men  and  nations. 
"Never  let  me  hear  that  foolish  word  again,"  said 
Mirabeau.  "  Impossible  !  —  it  is  not  good  French,*' 
said  Napoleon.  My  Lord  Anson,  at  the  Admiralty, 
sends  word  to  Chatham,  then  confined  to  his  chamber 
by  one  of  his  most  violent  attacks  of  the  gout,  that 
it  is  impossible  for  him  to  fit  out  a  naval  expedition 
within  the  period  to  which  he  is  limited.  "  Impossi- 
ble I "  cried  Chatham,  glaring  at  the  messenger ;  "  who 
talks  to  me  of  impossibilities  ? "  Then  starting  to 
his  feet,  and  forcing  out  great  drops  of  agony  on  his 
brow  with  the  excruciating  torment  of  the  effort,  he 
exclaimed,  "Tell  Lord  Anson  that  he  serves  under  a 
minister  who  treads  on  impossibilities ! "     One  of  his 

H 


114  HEROIC    CHARACTER. 

contemporaries  calls  all  this  ranting.  "Lord  Chat- 
ham's rants,"  he  says,  "  are  amazing."  But  a  states- 
man who  indulged  in  such  fine  rants  as  Quebec  and 
Minden,  who  ranted  France  out  of  Germany,  Amer- 
ica, and  India,  and  ranted  England  into  a  power 
of  the  first  class,  is  a  ranter  infinitely  to  be  pre- 
ferred to  those  cool  and  tasteful  politicians  who  ruin 
the  countries  they  govern  with  so  much  decorous 
duncery  and  grave  and  dignified  feebleness. 

Patriotism,  to  the  patriot  hero,  does  not  consist  m 
aiding  the  government  of  his  country  in  every  bass 
or  stupid  act  it  may  perform,  but  rather  in  paralyz- 
ing its  power  when  it  violates  vested  rights,  affronts 
instituted  justice,  and  assumes  undelegated  authority. 
Accordingly,  Chatham,  the  type  of  the  patriot,  but 
whose  patriotism  comprehended  the  whole  British 
empire,  put  forth  the  full  force  and  frenzy  of  his 
genius  and  passions  against  the  administrations  who 
taxed  America ;  gloried,  as  an  English  patriot,  in  the 
armed  resistance  of  the  Colonies;  gave  them  the  ma- 
terial aid  and  comfort  of  his  splendid  fame  and  over- 
whelming eloquence  ;  became,  in  the  opinion  of  all 
little-minded  patriots,  among  whom  was  King  George 
the  Third  himself,  a  trumpet  of  sedition,  an  enemy 
to  his  country;  and,  with  the  grand  audacity  of  his 
character,  organized  an  opposition,  so  strong  in  rea- 


HEROIC   CHARACTER.  115 

oon  and  moral  power,  and  so  uncompromising  in  its 
attitude,  that  it  at  least  enfeebled  the  efforts  of  the  gov- 
ernments it  could  not  overturn,  and  made  Lord  North 
more  than  once  humorously  execrate  the  memory  of 
Columbus  for  discovering  a  continent  which  gave  him 
and  his  ministry  so  much  trouble.  Fox  and  Burke, 
as  well  as  Chatham,  viewed  the  Americans  as  Eng- 
lish subjects  struggling  for  English  legal  privileges; 
they  would  not  admit,  even  after  the  Colonists  had 
revolted,  that  they  were  rebels ;  and  Lord  North  was 
near  the  truth,  when,  interrupted  by  Fox  for  using  the 
offensive  word,  he  mockingly  corrected  himself,  and 
with  an  arch  look  at  the  Whig  benches,  called  the 
American  army  and  generals,  not  rebels,  but  "  gentle- 
men of  the  Opposition  over  the  water."  In  after  years, 
when  Fox  and  Burke  had  quarrelled,  Fox,  referring, 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  to  old  memories  of  their 
political  friendship,  alluded  to  the  time  when  they  had 
mutually  wept  over  the  fall  of  Montgomery,  and  mu- 
tually rejoiced  over  a  victory  by  Washington ;  and 
one  of  the  noblest  passages  in  literature  is  the  mem- 
orable sentence  with  which  Burke  concludes  his' 
address  to  the  electors  of  Bristol,  in  defence  of  his  con- 
duct in  regard  to  the  American  war  and  the  govern- 
ment of  Ireland.  It  just  indicates  that  delicate  line 
which  separates,  in  great   and   generous  natures,  the 


116  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

highest  love  of  country  from  the  still  higher  love  of 
mankind.  "The  charges  against  me,"  he  says,  "are 
all  of  one  kind,  —  that  I  have  carried  the  principles 
of  general  justice  and  benevolence  too  far,  —  further 
than  a  cautious  policy  would  warrant,  —  further  than 
the  opinions  of  many  could  go  along  with  me.  In 
every  accident  which  may  happen  to  me  through  life, 
in  pain,  in  sorrow,  in  depression,  in  distress,  —  I  wilj 
call  to  mind  this  accusation,  and  be  comforted." 

It  is  a  great  advance,  morally  and  mentally,  when 
a  man's  heart  and  brain  reach  out  beyond  the  sphere 
of  his  personal  interests  to  comprehend  the  nation  to 
which  he  belongs ;  but  there  are  men  whose  ascending 
and  widening  natures  refuse  to  be  limited  even  by  the 
sentiment  and  idea  of  country,  whose  raised  conceptions 
grasp  the  beauty  of  beneficence,  the  grandeur  of  truth, 
the  majesty  of  right,  and  who,  in  the  service  of  these 
commanding  ideas,  are  ready  to  suffer  all,  in  the 
spirit  of  that  patience  which  St.  Pierre  finely  calls 
the  "  courage  of  virtue,"  and  to  dare  all,  in  the  spirit 
of  that  self-devotion  which  is  certainly  the  virtue  of 
courage.  This  class  includes  all  reformers  in  society, 
in  government,  in  philosophy,  in  religion,  whose  po- 
sition calls  for  heroic  acts,  resolutions,  sacrifices, — 
for  manhood  as  well  as  for  mental  power.  Thus 
Milton,   whose   whole    nature   was    cast  in  an  heroic 


HEROIC   CHARACTER.  117 

mould,  who  felt  himself  not  merely  the  countryman 
of  Shakespeare  and  Cromwell,  but  of  Homer  and 
Sophocles,  of  Dante  and  Tasso,  of  Luther  and  Me- 
lancthon,  —  of  all  men  who  acknowledge  the  sway  of 
the  beautiful,  the  noble,  and  the  right,  —  could  not, 
of  course,  write  anything  which  was  not  dictated  by 
an  heroic  spirit ;  all  his  sentences,  therefore,  have  the 
animating  and  penetrating,  as  well  as  illuminating 
power  of  heroic  acts,  and  always  imply  a  character 
strong  enough  to  make  good  his  words.  Still,  in 
gome  respects,  we  may  doubt  whether  the  mere 
writing  his  "  Defence  of  the  People  of  England,"  rises 
to  the  dignity  of  heroism ;  but,  when  his  physician 
told  him  that  if  he  did  write  it  he  would  lose  his 
eyesight,  his  calm  persistence  in  his  work  was  sub- 
limely heroic.  Freedom  demanded  of  the  student  his 
most  precious  sense,  and  he  resolutely  plucked  out 
his  eyes,  and  laid  them  on  her  altar,  content  to  abide 
in  outward  night,  provided  with  the  inner  eye  of  the 
soul  he  could  see  the  stern  countenance  of  inexora- 
ble Duty  melt  into  that  approving  smile  which  re- 
wards self-sacrifice  with  a  bliss  deeper  than  all  joys 
of  sense  or  raptures  of  imagination. 

There  are  occasions,  also,  where  mere  intellectual 
hardihood  may  be  in  the  highest  degree  heroic.  That 
peculiar   mo^al  fear  which  is  involved   in   intellectual 


118  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

timidity  is  often  harder  to  overcome  than  the  physi- 
cal fear  of  the  stake  and  the  rack.  There  are  men 
who  will  dare  death  for  glory  or  for  country,  who 
could  not  dare  scorn  or  contumely  for  the  truth ;  and 
people  generally  would  rather  die  than  think.  Noth- 
ing but  that  enrapturing  sentiment  and  vivid  vision 
implied  in  the  love  of  truth,  nothing  but  that  trans- 
porting thrill  which  imparadises  the  soul  in  the  per- 
ception of  a  new  thought,  can  lift  a  wise  and  good 
man  above  the  wholesome  prejudices  of  prudence^ 
custom,  country,  and  common  belief,  and  make  him 
let  loose  the  immortal  idea  his  mind  imprisons,  and 
send  it  forth  to  war  against  false  systems  and  te- 
nacious errors,  with  the  firm  faith  that  it  will  result 
in  eventual  good,  though  at  first  it  seems  to  trail 
along  with  it  the  pernicious  consequences  of  a  lie. 
Such  a  man  feels  the  awful  responsibility  laid  upon 
that  soul  into  whose  consciousness  descends  one  of 
those  revolutionizing  truths, 

"  Hard  to  shape  in  act : 
For  all  the  past  of  time  reveals 
A  bridal  dawn  of  thunder-peals, 
Wherever  thought  has  wedded  fact." 

Thus  heroic  resolution,  as  well  as  wide-reaching 
thought,  is  often  indispensable  to  the  philosophic 
thinker ;  but  when  to  the  deep  love  of  truth  is  added 


HEROIC    CHARACTER.  119 

the  deeper  love  of  right,  and  the  thinker  stands 
boldly  forth  as  a  practical  reformer,  the  obstacles, 
internal  and  external,  to  brave  and  determined  effort 
are  multiplied  both  to  his  conscience  and  his  will. 
A  prophet  of  the  future,  with  his  eager  eyes  fixed 
on  hope, — 

"  The  burning  eagle, 
Above  the  unrisen  morrow,"  — 

he  has  to  labor  in  the  present  on  men  whose  inspi- 
ration is  memory.  The  creative  and  beneficent  char- 
acter of  his  aggressive  thought  is  at  first  concealed 
by  its  destructive  aspect.  His  light  seems  lightning, 
which  irradiates  not  to  bless,  but  to  smite.  As  regards 
his  own  life  and  comfort,  he  may  be  ready,  in  every 
exigency,  to  say,  with  the  hero  of  Italy,  "  I  had 
rather  take  one  step  forward  and  die,  than  one  step 
backward  and  live";  but  he  often  has  also  to  resist 
the  tormenting  thought  that  he  is  sacrificing  himself 
only  to  injure  others,  and  is  preparing  to  go  triumph- 
antly through  the  earthly  hell  of  the  martyr's  stake, 
only  to  pass  into  that  hotter  hell  which  is  paved  with 
good  intentions.  A  universal  yell  denounces  him  as 
the  apostle  of  anarchy,  falsehood,  and  irreligion ;  and 
nothing  but  the  faith  which  discerns  and  takes  hold 
of  the  immortal  substance  of  truth  can  enable  him, 
not  only  to  withstand  this  shock  of  adverse   opinion, 


120  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

but  to  deal  his  prodigious  blows  with  the  condensed 
energy  of  unhesitating,  unweakened  will.  This  is  true 
strength  and  fortitude  of  soul,  reposing  grandly  on 
unseen  realities  above  it,  and  obstinately  resisting  the 
evidence  of  the  shifting  facts  which  appear  to  cast 
doubt  on  the  permanent  law.  It  is  probable  that 
WicklifFe,  Huss,  Luther,  all  heroic  men  who  have 
brought  down  fire  from  heaven,  the  light  and  the 
heat  of  truth,  had,  in  moments  of  despondency,  a  sly 
and  sneering  devil  at  their  elbow,  mocking  them  with 
the  taunt  by  which  the  scoffing  messenger  of  Jove 
adds  keener  agony  to  the  sujfferings  of  the  chained 
Prometheus :  — 

"  Those  who  do  endure 
Deep  wrongs  for  man,  and  scorn,  and  chains,  but  heap 
Thousand-fold  torment  on  themselves  and  kimy 

In  these  remarks,  so  far,  we  have  laid  stress  on 
the  principle  that  the  inspiration  of  the  hero  is  the 
positive  quality  of  love,  not  the  negative  quality  of 
hatred.  For  example,  Carlyle,  always  writing  of 
heroism,  is  rarely  heroic,  because  he  hates  falsehood 
rather  than  loves  truth,  and  is  a  disorganizer  of 
wrong  rather  than  an  organizer  of  right.  His  writ- 
ings tend  to  split  the  mind  into  a  kind  of  splendid 
disorder,  and  we  purchase  some  shining  fragments  of 
thought    at  the   expense   of  weakened   will.      Being 


HEROIC   CHARACTEIU.  ^lj?l 

.     /  .       ^i  /  'V 

negative,  he  cannot  communicate  life  and   inspirifttiDp 

to  others ;  for  negation  ends  in  despair,- apd^  l(we  alone       ^ 

can   communicate 


thought,  therefore,  can  never  become  a  positive  thing ; 
it  can  pout,  sneer,  gibe,  growl,  hate,  declaim,  destroy ; 
but  it  cannot  cheer,  it  cannot  create.  Now  men  may 
be  soldiers,  patriots,  and  reformers,  from  the  inspira- 
tion of  hatred ;  but  they  cannot  be  heroic.  It  is  love, 
and  love  alone,  whose  sweet  might  liberates  men 
from  the  thraldom  of  personal  considerations,  and 
lifts  them  into  the  exhilarating  region  of  unselfish 
activity.  It  is  not  the  fear  of  shame,  but  love  of 
glory,  which  makes  the  purely  heroic  soldier.  It  is 
not  hatred  of  other  nations,  but  love  of  his  own, 
which  makes  the  heroic  patriot.  It  is  not  hatred  of 
falsehood  and  wrong,  but  love  of  truth  and  right, 
which  makes  the  heroic  thinker  and  reformer.  And 
it  is  not  the  fear  of  hell  and  hatred  of  the  Devil,  but 
the  love  of  heaven,  which  makes  the  heroic  saint. 
All  the  hatred,  all  the  fear,  are  incidental  and  acci- 
dental, not  central  and  positive.  We  should  hardly 
style  old  King  Clovis  a  saint  on  the  strength  of  the 
passion  he  flew  into  w^hen  the  account  of  the  Crucifix- 
ion was  read  to  him,  and  of  his  fierce  exclamation, 
"  I  w^ould  I  had  been  there  with  my  valiant  Franks ! 
I  would  have  redressed  his  wrongs ! " 
6 


122  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

Tlie  heroism  of  the  saint,  the  last  to  be  con^idere(^ 
here,  exceeds  all  other  heroism  in  depth,  intensity, 
comprehensiveness,  elevation,  and  wisdom.  The  hero 
soldier,  the  hero  patriot,  the  hero  reformer,  each  is 
great  by  detaching  one  idea  from  the  sum  of  things, 
and  throwing  his  whole  energies  into  its  realization  ; 
but  the  hero  saint  views  all  things  in  relation  to 
their  centre  and  source.  He  brings  in  the  idea  of 
God,  and  at  once  the  highest  earthly  objects  swiftly 
recede  to  their  proper  distance,  and  dwindle  to  their 
real  dimensions.  But  this  heroism,  though  it  exhibits 
human  nature  reposing  on  an  all-inclusive  idea,  the. 
mightiest  that  the  heart  can  conceive  or  the  mind 
dimly  grope  for  on  the  vanishing  edges  of  intelligence, 
is  still  not  a  heroism  eagerly  coveted  or  warmly  ap- 
proved. It  is  recorded  of  Saint  Theresa,  that,  after 
she  had  become  old  and  poor  in  the  service  of  the 
Lord,  and  had  only  two  sous  left  of  all  her  posses- 
sions, she  sat  down  to  meditate.  "Theresa  and  two 
sous,"  she  said,  "  are  nothing ;  but  Theresa,  two  sous, 
and  God,  are  all  things " ;  on  which  Pierre  Leroux 
makes  the  bitter  comment:  "To  the  young  bucks  of 
Paris,  Theresa,  young  and  handsome,  and  worth  but 
two  sous,  would  be  little ;  and  Theresa,  two  sous,  and 
God,  would  be  still  less!" 

The  mental  phenomena  implied  in  the  acts,  or  re- 


HEROIC   CHARACTER.  123 

corded  in  the  writings,  of  the  heroes  of  religion  are 
of  so  grand  and  transcendent  a  character  that  one 
can  hardly  have  patience  with  Mr.  Worldly  Wise- 
man, —  the  worthy  gentleman  who  writes  history  and 
explains  the  problems  of  metaphysics,  —  when,  with 
his  knowing  look,  he  disposes  of  the  whole  matter  by- 
some  trash  about  fanaticism  and  disordered  imagina- 
tion. Now  glory,  country,  humanity,  are  realities 
only  to  those  who  love  them ;  and  the  all-compre- 
hending Reality  the  saint  seeks  and  adores,  is  but  a 
faint  star, 

"  Pinnacled  dim  in  the  intense  mane," 

to  the  wisest  of  the  worldlings.  By  what  right  does 
he  sit  in  critical  judgment  on  the  saints  and  martyrs, 
when  his  point  of -view  is  earth,  and  their  point  of 
view  is  heaven  ?  Religious  heroism,  indeed,  in  its 
gradual  growth  from  religious  sentiment,  is  a  feeling 
before  it  is  an  idea ;  but  what  the  heart  wishes  the 
mind  soon  discerns ;  and  the  marvellous  experiences 
which  visit  the  consciousness  of  the  saint  are  logical 
results  of  the  gravitation  of  his  nature  to  its  source, 
and  are  as  valid  as  other  facts  of  immediate  per- 
ception. Once  roused,  this  divinizing  sentiment  kin- 
dles the  whole  solid  mass  of  his  being  with  its 
penetrating  and  purifying  fire;  carries  his  thoughts, 
affections,    passions,    to    higher   levels   of    character; 


124  HEROIC   CHARACTER. 

converts  faith  into  sight,  so  that  at  last  the  n?ys- 
teries  of  the  supernatural  world  are  partially  unrolled 
to  his  eager  gaze  ;  he  catches  glimpses  of  glories 
almost  too  bright  for  the  aching  sense  to  bear ;  dis- 
cerns right,  truth,  beneficence,  justice,  as  radiations 
from  one  awful  loveliness ;  and  sees 

"  Around  His  throre  the  sanctities  of  heaven 
Stand  thick  as  stars  ;  and  from  His  sight  receive 
Beatitude  past  utterance." 

Filled  and  stirred  with  these  wondrous  visions, 

"  Which  o'erinform  his  tenement  of  clay," 

he  becomes  a  soldier  of  the  chivalry  of  spirit,  a  pa- 
triot of  the  heavenly  kingdom,  —  the  true  "pilgrim 
of  eternity,"  burdened  beneath  the  weight  of  his 
rapture  until  it  finds  expression  in  those  electric 
deeds  whose  shock  is  felt  all  over  the  earth,  amazing 
1  Time  itself  with  a  thrill  from  Eternity.  The  still, 
deep  ecstasy  which  imparadises  his  spirit  can  but 
imperfectly  ally  itself  with  human  language,  though 
it  occasionally  escapes  along  his  written  page  in  fit- 
ful gleams  of  celestial  lightning,  touching  such  words 
as  "joy,"  and  "sweetness,"  and  "rest,"  with  an  un- 
earthly significance,  a  preternatural  intensity  of  mean- 
ing; but  the  full  power  of  this  awful  beauty  of 
holiness  is  only  seen  and  felt  in  the  virtues  it  creates ; 


HEROIC    CHARACTER.  125 

in  the  felicity  with  which  it  transmutes  calamities 
into  occasions  for  the  exercise  of  new  graces  of  char- 
acter ;  in  the  sureness  of  its  glance  into  the  occult  se- 
crets of  life  ;  in  the  solid  patience  which  exhausts  all 
the  ingenuity  of  persecution  ;  in  the  intrepid  meekness 
which  is  victorious  over  the  despotic  might  of  unhal- 
lowed force ;  in  the  serene  audacity  which  dares  all 
the  principalities  of  earth,  and  defies  all  the  powers 
of  hell ;  in  the  triumphant  Faith  which  hears  the 
choral  chant  amidst  the  torments  of  the  rack,  and 
sees  the  cherubic  faces  through  the  glare  of  the  fires 
of  martyrdom ! 

But  perhaps  there  is  nothing  more  exquisitely 
simple  and  touching  in  the  experience  of  the  hero 
of  religion,  nothing  which  more  startles  us  by  its 
confident  faith,  than  the  feeling  which  animates  his 
colloquies  and  meditations  when  the  spiritual  home- 
sickness, the  pang  of  what  Coleridge  calls  the  senti- 
ment of  "  other  worldliness,"  presses  on  his  soul,  and 
he  confesses  to  the  weakness  of  desiring  to  depart. 
Thus  figure  to  yourselves  Luther,  as  he  is  revealed 
to  us  in  his  old  age,  sitting  by  the  rude  table  in  his 
humble  house,  and,  with  a  few  dear  veterans  of  the 
Reformation,  gossiping  over  the  mugs  of  ale  on  the 
affairs  of  the  celestial  kingdom,  while  the  thunders 
of  papal    and    imperial   wrath   are   heard    muttering 


126  HEROIC   CHARACTER 

ominously  in  the  distance.  Luther  tells  them  that 
he  begins  to  feel  the  longing  to  leave  their  camp  on 
earth,  and  to  go  home.  Pie  is  not  without  hope 
that  the  Lord,  in  view  of  his  protracted  strugg.^es 
and  declining  energies,  will  soon  recall  him.  lie  is 
resigned,  not  to  die,  but  to  live,  if  such  be  the  order 
from  head-quarters ;  but  if  it  be  not  presumptuous  in 
him  to  proffer  a  petition,  he  could  wish  it  to  be 
considered  that  he  had  sojourned  here  long  enough, 
and  should  have  permission  to  depart,  it  mattering 
little  to  him  whether  the  medium  of  transfer  from 
one  world  to  another  be  the  bed  of  sickness  or  the 
martyr's  stake.  At  any  rate,  however,  age  is  doing 
its  sure  work  even  on  his  stalwart  frame ;  and  he 
closes  with  the  consoling  sentiment  so  finely  embod- 
ied by  the  Christian  poet: 

"Within  this  body  pent, 
Absent  from  Thee  I  roam : 
But  nightly  pitch  my  moving  tent 
A  day's  march  nearer  home."  •- 

We  have  thus  attempted  to  picture;  with  a  few 
rude  scrawls  of  the  pencil,  the  heroic  spirit,  as  its 
creative  glow  successively  animates  the  soldier,  the 
patriot,  the  reformer,  and  the  saint,  painfully  con- 
scious all  the  while  that  we  have  not  sounded  its 
depth  of  sentiment,  nor  measured  its  height  of  char- 


HEROIC    CHARACTER.  127 

acter,  nor  told  its  fulness  of  joy.  We  have  seen  that 
this  spirit  is  a  spirit  of  cheer,  and  love,  and  beauty, 
and  power,  giving  the  human  soul  its  finest  and 
amplest  expression ;  and  that,  while  its  glorious  in- 
spiration illuminates  history  with  the  splendors  of 
romance,  it  is  the  prolific  source,  in  humble  life,  of 
heroic  deeds  which  no  history  records,  no  poetry  cel- 
ebrates, and  of  which  renown  is  mute.  This  spirit  is 
everywhere,  and  it  is  needed  everywhere.  It  is 
needed  to  resist  low  views  of  business,  low  ^iews  of 
politics,  low  views  of  patriotism,  low  views  of  life. 
It  is  needed  in  every  situation  where  passion  tempts, 
sloth  enfeebles,  fear  degrades,  power  threatens,  and 
interest  deludes.  And  it  is  not  without  its  band  of 
witnesses  to  sound  their  everlasting  protest  against 
meanness,  cowardice,  baseness,  and  fraud,  and  tc 
shield  in  their  sustaining  arms,  and  invigorate  by 
their  immortal  presence,  the  sorely-tempted  novices 
of  heroic  honor  and  virtue.  They  rise  before  the 
soul's  eye,  a  glorious  company  of  immortals,  from  the 
battle-fields  of  unselfish  fame ;  they  come  from  the 
halls  w^here  patriotism  thundered  its  ardent  resolves, 
and  from  the  scaffolds  which  its  self-devotion  trans- 
figured into  sacrificial  altars;  they  Issue  from  the 
hissing  crowd  of  scorners  and  bigots  through  which 
the  lor^«  Reformer  urged  his  victorious  way ;  and  they 


128  HEROIC    CHARACTER. 

come  from  that  promised  heaven  on  earth,  beaming 
from  the  halo  which  encircles  the  head  and  beatifies 
the  countenance  of  the  saint,  smiling  celestial  disdain 
of  torture  and  death.  From  all  these  they  come,  — 
they  press  upon  the  consciousness,  —  not  as  dead 
memories  of  the  past,  but  as  living  forces  of  the 
present,  to  stream  into  our  spirits  the  resistless  en- 
ergies which  gladden  theirs :  — 

"  Filling  the  soul  with  sentiments  august ; 
The  beautiful,  the  brave,  the  holy,  and  the  jtut" 


THE    AMERICAN    MIND, 


IN  studyiDg  literature  and  history,  we  are  at  first 
attracted  by  particular  events  and  individual  minds, 
and  we  rise  but  gradually  to  the  conception  of  nations 
and  national  minds,  including,  of  course,  under  the 
latter  phrase,  all  the  great  moving,  vital  powers  ex- 
pressed in  the  phenomena  of  a  nation's  life.  The 
external  history,  the  political  institutions,  the  litera- 
ture, laws,  and  manners  of  a  people,  are  but  its 
thoughts  in  visible  or  audible  expression,  and  ever 
carry  us  back  to  the  Mind  whence  they  proceeded, 
and  from  which  they  received  their  peculiar  national 
character.  We  cannot  form  just  notions  even  of  in- 
dividuals without  viewing  them  as  related  to  their 
age  and  eountry,  as  expressions,  more  or  less  emphatic, 
of  the  National  Mind,  in  whose  depths  their  personal 
being  had  its  birth,  and  from  whose  vitality  they 
drew  the  pith  and  nerve  of  character.  Thus  Pericles, 
Scipio,  and  Chatham  lose  much  of  their  raciness  and 
genuineness  if  not  considered  as  related  in  this  way 
6*  I 


130  THE   AMERICAN    MIND. 

to  Greece,  Rome,  and  England,  who  bore  them,  nur- 
tured them,  colored  and  directed  their  thoughts  and 
passions,  clothed  them  with  power  as  with  a  garment ; 
so  that  Greece  saw  in  Pericles  the  mirror  of  her  own 
supple  strength  and  plastic  intellect ;  and  Rome  be- 
held in  Scipio  the  image  of  her  own  fixed  will  and 
large  reason;  and  England  recognized  in  Chatham's 
swift  Norman  energy  and  solid  Saxon  sense  the  child 
who  had  drained  honesty,  intelligence,  and  imperious 
pride  from  her  own  arrogant  breast.  It  thus  requires 
a  great  people  to  bear  a  brood  of  great  men  ;  for 
great  men  require  strong  incitements;  a  field  for  ac- 
tion ;  courage,  power,  glory,  and  virtue  around  as 
well  as  within  them;  and  if  powerful  natures  do  not 
start  naturally  up,  to  meet  any  terrible  emergency  of 
a  nation's  life,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  National 
Mind  has  become  weak  and  corrupt,  has  "lost  the 
breed  of  noble  bloods,"  and  that  external  enemies, 
like  empirics  dealing  with  consumptive  patients,  only 
accelerate  a  death  already  doomed  by  interior  de- 
cay. 

Thus,  when  we  would  comprehend  in  one  inclusive 
term  the  intellect  and  individuality  of  Greece,  or 
Rome,  or  England,  we  speak  of  the  Greek,  or  Ro- 
man, or  English  mind.  A  national  mind  implies  a 
nation,   not    a    mere    aggregation   of    individuals    or 


THE   AMERICAN   MIND.  131 

states ;  and  we  propose  now  to  consider  the  question, 
Whether  or  not  there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  Amer- 
ican Mind;  and  if  so,  what  are  its  characteristics 
and  tendencies;  what  is  the  inspiration,  and  what 
the  direction  it  gives  to  the  individual  man  in 
America  ? 

In  treating  this  subject,  it  is  important  that  we 
avoid  all  that  blatant  and  bragging  tone  in  which 
American  conceit  thinly  veils  its  self-distrust ;  that 
a  deaf  ear  be  presented  to  the  exulting  dissonance 
of  the  American  chanticleer ;  that  the  Pilgrim  Fathers 
be  disturbed  as  little  as  possible  in  their  well-earned 
graves ;  and  that  the  different  parts  of  the  discourse 
be  not  found,  like  the  compositions  of  certain  em- 
inent musicians,  to  be  but  symphonious  variations 
on  the  one  tune  of  "  Yankee  Doodle,"  or  "  Hail 
Columbia." 

And,  first,  in  view  of  the  varieties  of  races  and  in- 
terests included  under  our  government,  can  we  assert 
the  existence  of  an  American  Mind?  We  certainly 
cannot  do  this  in  the  sense  in  which  we  say  there 
was  a  Greek  mind,  whose  birth,  growth,  maturity,  and 
decay  we  can  take  in  at  one  grasp  of  generalization ; 
or  in  the  sense  in  which  we  say  there  is  an  English 
mind,  full-grown  and  thoroughly  organized  in  man- 
ners, institutions,  and  literature.     All  that  we  can  as* 


132  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

sert  is,  that  the  thoughts,  acts,  and  characteis  of 
Plymouth  Puritan  and  Virginia  Cavalier,  through 
two  centuries  of  active  existence,  have  been  fused 
into  a  mass  of  national  thought,  character,  and  life ; 
and  that  this  national  life  has  sufficient  energy  and 
pliancy  to  assimilate  the  foreign  natures  incessantly 
pouring  into  it,  and  to  grow,  through  this  process  of 
assimilation,  into  a  comprehensive  national  mind.  At 
present  we  can  discern  little  more  than  tendencies, 
and  the  clash  and  conflict  of  the  various  elements; 
but  the  strongest  force  —  the  force  to  which  the  oth- 
er elements  gravitate,  and  by  which  they  will  all 
eventually  be  absorbed  —  is  the  Saxon-English  ele- 
ment in  its  modified  American  form.  The  Celt,  the 
German,  the  Englishman,  the  Dane,  can  exist  here 
only  by  parting  with  his  national  individuality;  for 
he  is  placed  in  a  current  of  influences  which  inevi- 
tably melts  him  down  into  the  mass  of  American  life. 
But,  while  this  absorption  changes  his  character,  it 
modifies  also  the  character  of  the  absorbing  force ; 
for  the  American  Mind,  with  every  infusion  of  for- 
eign mind,  adds  to  its  being  an  element  which  does 
not  lie  as  a  mere  novelty  on  its  surface,  but  pene- 
trates into  its  flexible  and  fluid  substance,  mixes  with 
its  vital  blood,  and  enriches  or  impoverishes,  elevates 
or  depraves,  its  inmost  nature ;  and  so  organic  in  its 


THE   AMERICAN    MIND.  133 

character  is  this  seeming  abstraction  of  a  nation,  that, 
for  every  such  infusion  of  a  foreign  element,  each 
citizen  is  either  injured  or  benefited,  and  finds  that 
he  acts  and  thinks  the  better  or  the  worse  for  it. 
The  baim  or  the  poison  steals  mysteriously  into  him 
from  all  surrounding  circumstances :  from  the  press, 
from  politics,  from  trade,  from  social  communion,  from 
the  very  air  he  breathes,  come  the  currents  of  a  new 
life  to  warm  or  to  chill,  to  invigorate  or  deaden,  his 
individual  heart  and  brain.  This  fact  goes  under  the 
name  of  a  change  in  public  sentiment;  and  have  we 
not  often  witnessed  its  miracles  of  apostasy  or  con- 
version wrought  on  men  whose  characters  we  fondly 
thought  fixed  as  fate  ? 

The  American  Mind  thus  promises  to  be  a  com- 
posite mind,  —  composite  in  the  sense  of  assimilation, 
not  of  mere  aggregation.  Its  two  original  elements 
were  the  Englishman  who  came  here  to  found,  repair, 
or  increase  his  estate,  and  the  Englishman  who  was 
driven  here  by  political  and  ecclesiastical  oppression. 
Of  these,  the  stronger  of  the  two  is  undoubtedly 
the  latter;  and  the  last  probe  of  historical  and  criti- 
cal analysis  touches  him  at  the  nation's  centre  and 
heart.  This  Puritan  Englishman  was  all  character  : 
strong  in  the  energy,  courage,  practical  skill  and 
hard   persistency  of  character:   with   a   characteristic 


134  THE  AMERICAN   MIND. 

religion,  morality,  and  temper  of  mind  ;  at  once  the 
most  forcible  and  the  most  exclusive  man  that  the 
seventeenth  century  produced.  Yet  from  this  bigoted, 
austere,  iron-willed,  resisting,  and  persisting  Saxon 
religionist  —  intolerant  of  other  natures,  from  the  very 
solidity  and  lowering  might  of  his  own  —  has  sprung 
the  flexible,  assimilative,  compromising,  all-accom 
plished  Yankee,  who  is  neither  Puritan  nor  Cavalier, 
Englishman,  Irishman,  Frenchman,  nor  German,  but 
seems  to  have  a  touch  of  them  all,  and  is  ready  to 
receive  and  absorb  them  all.  A  Protean  personage, 
he  can  accommodate  himself  to  any  circumstances,  to 
all  forms  of  society,  government,  and  religion.  He 
is  the  staid,  sensible  farmer,  merchant,  or  mechanic 
of  New  England,  with  his  restlessness  subdued  into 
inveterate  industry  and  power  of  rigid  application ; 
but  he  is  also  Sam  Slick  in  the  Provinces,  and  Nim- 
rod  Wildfire  in  Kentucky,  and  Jefferson  Brick  on 
the  frontier.  Through  all  disguises,  and  in  every 
clime  visited  by  sin  and  trade,  peep  the  shrewd 
twinkle  of  his  knowing  eyes  and  the  multiform  move- 
ments of  his  cunning  fingers  !  Let  him  drop  down 
in  Siberia  or  Japan,  in  England  or  Italy,  in  a  South 
ern  plantation  or  Western  settlement,  and  he  seems 
to  say,  "  Gentlemen,  behold  the  smartest  man  in  all 
creation !  one  who  will  put  your  brain  into  his  head, 


THE   AMERICAN   MIND.  135 

get  at  your  secret,  and  beat  you  in  the  art  of  being 
yourselves ;  so  please  fall  into  rank,  deliver  up  your 
purses,  acknowledge  your  born  lord  and  king  I " 

We  have  not  time  to  discuss  here  the  question, 
how  a  national  mind,  which  is  distinguished  above 
all  others  for  mental  hospitality  and  general  availa- 
bleness,  had  its  root  in  a  Puritanism  as  unaccommo- 
dating as  it  was  powerful.  It  is,  perhaps,  sufficient 
to  say,  in  explanation,  that  the  Puritan,  narrow  and 
isolated  as  he  seems,  had  one  side  of  his  nature  wide 
open  to  liberal  influences.  His  religious  creed,  it 
is  true,  was  authoritative ;  he  submitted  to  it  him- 
self, he  enforced  it  upon  others;  but  in  political 
speculation  he  was  audaciously  independent.  In  the 
art  and  science  of  government  he  had  no  European 
equal  either  among  statesmen  or  philosophers,  and  his 
politics,  constantly  connected  as  they  were  with  his 
industrial  enterprise,  eventually  undermined  his  des- 
potic theology.  But  our  business  here  is  with  the 
American  Mind  as  it  now  is,  and  as  it  promises  to 
be  hereafter.  This  mind  we  must  consider  as  having 
its  expression  in  the  -nation's  life  ;  and  certainly  the 
first  survey  of  it  reveals  a  confusion  of  qualities 
which  apparently  elude  analysis  and  defy  generaliz- 
ation. This  confusion  results,  as  in  the  individual 
mind,  from   the   variety  of  unassimilated  elements  in 


136  THE   AMERICAN    MIND. 

contact  or  collision  with  the  national  personality ;  and 
accordingly  its  harmony  is  disturbed  by  a  mob  of 
noisy  opinions,  which  never  have,  and  some  of  which, 
we  trust,  never  will,  become  living  ideas  and  active 
forces.  The  consequence  of  this  juxtaposition  of 
mental  organization  with  mental  anarchy,  in  a  na 
tional  mind  hospitable  to  everything,  and  now  only 
visible  to  us  in  its  fierce,  swift,  devouring  growth,  if/ 
a  lack  of  solidity,  depth,  and  tenacity  in  comparison 
with  its  nimbleness,  and  a  disposition  to  combine  0 
superficial  enthusiasm  for  theories  with  a  shrewd  hold 
upon  things  throughout  the  broad  field  of  its  restless, 
curious,  inventive,  appropriative,  scheming,  plausible, 
glorious,  and  vainglorious  activity.  But  the  two 
grand  leading  characteristics  of  its  essential  nature 
are  energy  and  impressibility,  —  an  impressibility  all 
alive  to  the  most  various  objects,  and  receptive  of 
elements  conflicting  with  each  other,  and  a  primitive, 
inherent  energy,  too  quick,  fiery,  and  buoyant  to  be 
submerged  by  the  wealth  of  life  which  its  impressi- 
bility pours  into  it ;  an  energy  which  whelms  in  its 
stream  all  slower  and  feebler  natures  with  which  it 
comes  in  contact,  and  rushes  onward  with  the  force 
of  fate  and  the  intelligence  of  direction. 

In  estimating  the  quantity  and  quality  of  this  men- 
tal  energy,  we   must  ascertain  the  different  channels 


THE   AMERICAN    MIND.  137 

r 

of  work  and  production  into  which  it  is  poured. 
Work  of  some  kind  is  the  measure  of  its  power  and 
the  test  of  its  quality ;  but  we  must  avoid  the  fallacy 
of  supposing  that  art  and  literature  are  the  only  ex- 
pressions of  a  nation's  intellect.  It  would,  indeed,  be 
a  grotesque  libel  on  some  ten  millions  of  educated 
people  to  declare  that  American  literature  represented 
more  than  a  fraction  of  American  intelligence.  That 
intelligence  has  received  a  practical  direction,  and  is 
expressed,  not  in  Iliads  and  -^neids,  not  in  Principias 
and  Cartoons,  but  in  commerce,  in  manufactures,  in  the 
liberal  professions,  in  the  mechanic  arts,  in  the  arts  of 
government  and  legislation,  in  all  those  fields  of  labor 
where  man  grapples  directly  with  nature,  or  with  so- 
cial problems  which  perplex  his  practical  activity. 
To  describe  the  miracles  which  American  energy  has 
wrought  in  these  departments  would  be  to  invade  a 
domain  sacred  to  caucus  speeches  and  all  kinds  of 
starred-and-striped  bravado,  and  perhaps  they  speak 
for  themselves  with  far  more  emphasis  than  orators 
can  speak  for  them,  having  hieroglyphed,  as  Carlyle 
would  say,  "America,  her  mark,"  over  a  whole  con- 
tinent ;   but   it   is   not   generally  admitted   that   mind 

—  analytical,  assimilative,  constructive,   creative   mind 

—  is  as  much  implied  in  these  practical  directions  of 
intelliojence  as  in  abstract   science   and  the  fine  arts 


138  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

SO  that,  if  a  sudden  upward  ideal  turn  were  given  to 
the  national  sentiment,  the  intellectual  energy  which 
would  leave  contriving  railroads,  calculating  markets, 
and  creating  capital,  and  rush  into  epics,  lyrics,  and 
pastorals,  would  make  Wall  Street  stare  and  totter, 
and  our  present  generation  of  poets  strangle  them- 
selves with  their  own  lines.  Indeed,  observation, 
reason,  and  imagination  are  powers  which  do  not  lose 
their  nature  in  their  application  to  widely  different 
objects.  Thus  Sir  William  Hamilton,  the  acutest 
analyst  of  Aristotle's  mental  processes,  declares  that 
abstruse  and  seemingly  juiceless  metaphysician  to 
have  had  as  great  an  imagination  as  Homer;  arid 
though  we  are  prone  to  associate  imagination  with 
some  elevation  of  sentiment,  Shakespeare  has  given 
more  of  it  to  lago,  and  Goethe  has  given  more  of  it 
to  Mephistopheles,  than  Nature  gave  to  Bishop  Heber, 
the  purest  of  England's  minor  poets.  Applying  this 
principle  to  business,  we  shall  find  much  to  disturb 
the  self-content  of  second-rate  litterateurs  and  savans, 
who  are  accustomed  to  congratulate  themselves  that, 
if  others  have  the  money,  they  at  least  have  the  brains, 
if  we  should  sharply  scrutinize  the  mental  processes 
of  a  first-rate  merchant.  Is  it  observation  you  de- 
mand? Behold  with  what  keen  accuracy  he  perceives 
and  discriminates  facts.     Is  it  understanding?     Look 


THE   AMERICAN   MIND.  189 

at  the  long  trains  of  reasoning,  —  the  conclusion  of 
each  argument  forming  the  premise  of  the  next, — 
by  which  he  moves,  step  by  step,  to  an  induction  on 
whose  soundness  he  risks  character  and  fortune.  Is 
it  will  ?  Mark  him  when  a  financial  hurricane  sweeps 
over  the  money-market,  and  observe  how  firm  is  his 
grasp  of  principles,  and  how  intelligently  his  cold  eye 
surveys  the  future,  w^hile  croakers  all  around  him  are 
selling  and  sacrificing  their  property  in  paroxysms  of 
imbecile  apprehension.  Is  it  imagination?  See  how 
to  him,  in  his  dingy  counting-house,  the  past  becomes 
present,  and  the  distant,  near ;  his  mind  speeding  from 
St.  Petersburg  to  London,  from  Smyrna  to  Calcutta, 
on  wings  which  mock  the  swiftness  of  steamers  and 
telegraphs  ;  or,  bridging  over  the  spaces  which  divide 
sensible  realities  from  ideal  possibilities,  see  how  he 
blends  in  one  consistent  idea  and  purpose  stray 
thoughts  and  separate  facts,  whose  hidden  analogies 
the  eye  alone  of  imagination  could  divine.  Is  it,  in 
short,  general  force  and  refinement  of  mind  ?  Behold 
how  comprehensive  and  how  cautious  is  his  glance  over 
that  sensitive,  quivering,  ever-shifting  sea  of  commer- 
cial phenomena,  —  so  wide  as  to  belt  the  globe,  and 
s-i  intimately  connected  that  a  jar  in  any  part  sends 
a  ihrill  through  the  whole,  —  and  note  with  what 
subtle  certainty  of  insight  he  penetrates   beneath  the 


140  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

seeming  anarchy,  and  clutches  the  slippery  and  elu- 
sive but  unvarying  laws.  There  is,  indeed,  a  com- 
mercial genius,  as  well  as  a  poetical  and  metaphysi' 
cal  genius,  —  the  faculties  the  same,  the  sentiments 
and  the  direction  different.  Wealth  may  be,  if  you 
please,  often  insolent  and  unfeeling ;  may  scorn,  as 
visionary,  things  more  important  than  wealth ;  but  still 
it  is  less  frequently  blundered  into  than  artists  and 
philosophers  are  inclined  to  believe. 

But  though  we  can  thus  trace  the  same  radical 
mental  energy  in  industrial  as  in  artistical  labors, 
the  force  and  durability  of  a  nation's  mind  still  de- 
mand not  only  diversity  in  its  industrial  occupations, 
but  a  diversity  in  the  direction  of  the  mind  itself, 
which  shall  answer  to  the  various  sentiments  and  ca- 
pacities of  the  soul.  .It  is  in  this  comprehensive- 
ness that  most  nations  fail,  their  activity  being  nar- 
rowed by  the  dominion  of  one  impulse  and  tendency, 
which  leads  them  to  the  summit  of  some  special 
excellence,  and  then  surely  precipitates  them  into 
decay  and  ruin.  Such  narrowness  is  the  death  of 
mind,  and  national  exclusiveness  is  national  suicide. 
Thus  the  genius  and  capital  of  Italy  were  dispropor- 
tionately directed  to  the  fine  arts ;  its  wealth  is  now, 
accordingly,  too  much  in  palaces  and  cathedrals,  in 
pictures  and  statues ;  and  its  worship  of  beauty,  and 


THE   AMERICAN   MIND.  141 

disdain  of  the  practical,  have  resulted  in  an  idle  and 
impoverished  people,  deficient  in  persistency,  in  en- 
ergy, even  in  artistical  creativeness,  and  the  easy 
prey  of  insolent  French  and  Austrian  arms  and 
diplomacy.  Such  a  country  cannot  be  made  free  by 
introducing  acres  of  rant  on  the  rights  of  man,  but 
by  establishing  commerce,  manufactures,  and  a  living 
industry.  Again,  the  higher  philosophy  of  Germany 
has  been  directed  too  exclusively  to  abstract  specu- 
lation, altogether  removed  from  actual  life ;  and  the 
reason  is  not  to  be  sought  in  the  assertion  that  the 
German  mind  lacks  solidity,  but  in  the  fact  that  an 
arbitrary  government  has  heretofore  refused  all  free- 
dom to  German  thought,  unless  it  were  exercised  in 
a  region  above  the  earth  and  beyond  politics,  and 
there  it  may  be  the  chartered  libertine  of  chaos  or 
atheism.  By  thus  denying  citizenship  to  the  thinker, 
the  state  has  made  him  licentious  in  speculation. 
He  may  theorize  matter  out  of  existence,  Christ  out 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  God  out  of  the  universe, 
and  the  government  nods  in  the  very  sleepiness  of 
toleration ;  but  the  moment  he  doubts  the  wisdom  oi 
some  brazen  and  nonsensical  lie  embodied  in  a  law, 
or  whispers  aught  against  the  meanest  official  under- 
ling, he  does  it  with  the  dungeon  or  the  scaffold  star- 
ing him  in  the  face ;  and  the  grim  headsman  perhap? 


142  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

reminds  him  that  he  lives  under  a  paternal  govern- 
ment, where  he  is  free  to  blaspheme  God,  but  not  to 
insult  the  House  of  Hapsburg.  Now,  as  the  German's 
metaphysics  have  been  vitiated  by  his  lack  of  politi- 
cal rights,  and  as  the  Italian's  exclusive  devotion  to 
art  has  extinguished  even  the  energy  by  which  art 
is  produced,  so  there  is  danger  that  our  extreme 
practical  and  political  turn  will  vulgarize  and  debase 
our  national  mind  to  that  low  point  where  the  ener- 
gy and  the  motive  to  industrial  production  are  lost. 
There  can  be  no  reasonable  fear  that  the  beautiful 
in  art  or  the  transcendental  in  thought  will  over- 
whelm our  faculty  of  making  bargains ;  but  there  is 
danger  that  the  nation's  worship  of  labors  whose 
worth  is  measured  by  money  will  give  a  sordid  char- 
acter to  its  mightiest  exertions  of  power^  eliminate 
heroism  from  its  motives,  destroy  all  taste  for  lofty 
speculation  and  all  love  for  ideal  beauty,  and  inflame 
individuals  with  a  devouring  self-seeking,  corrupting 
the  very  core  of  the  national  life.  The  safety  of  the 
American  from  this  gulf  of  selfishness  and  avarice  is 
to  be  looked  for,  partly  in  the  prodigious  moral, 
mental,  and  benevolent  agencies  he  has  established 
all  around  him,  and  partly  in  that  not  unamiable 
vanity  by  which  he  is  impelled,  not  only  to  make 
money,  but  to  do  something  great  or  "  smart "  in  his 
way  of  making  it. 


/  "^y 


THE   AMERICAN   MINli(.       ^^  1^43^ 

This  living  and  restless  mass  of  bein^  whicV*jto  . 
the  organic  body  of  American  life,  —  decent,  orderly,  ^-A"/ 
respectable,  intelligent,  and  productive,  —  with  Eco- 
nomics as  the  watchword  of  its  onward  movement,  has, 
from  the  intensity  of  its  practical  direction,  roused 
the  diseased  opposition  of  two  classes  on  the  vanish- 
ing extremes  of  its  solid  substance ;  namely,  a  class 
of  violent  reformers  who  scorn  economics  on  the 
ground  of  morality,  and  a  class  of  violent  radicals 
who  scorn  economics  on  the  ground  of  glory;  and 
these  are  in  irreconcilable  enmity  with  each  other,  as 
well  as  in  distempered  antagonism  to  the  nation. 
The  first  class,  commonly  passing  under  the  name  of 
"  Come-outers,"  have  almost  carried  the  principle  of  ^ 
free-will  and  personal  responsibility  to  the  extent  of 
converting  themselves  from  individuals  into  individu- 
alisms,  and  they  brand  every  man  who  consents  to 
stay  in  a  wicked  community  like  ours  as  a  partici- 
pant in  the  guilt  and  profits  of  its  sins.  The  Come- 
outer,  when  he  thoroughly  comes  out,  protests  against 
the  whole  life  of  society,  condemning,  from  certain 
abstract  propositions,  all  its  concrete  laws,  customs, 
morality,  and  religion,  and  strives  to  separate  himself 
from  the  national  mind,  and  live  morally  and  men- 
tally apart  from  it.  But  this  last  is  a  hopeless  effort. 
To  the  community  he   is   vitally  bound,  and   he   can 


144  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

no  more  escape  from  it  than  he  can  escape  from  the 
grasp  of  the  earth's  attraction  should  he  leap  into  the 
air  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  himself  away  off 
in  space.  The  earth  would  say  to  him,  as  she 
hauled  him  back,  "  If  you  dislike  my  forests,  fell  them  ; 
if  my  mountains  trouble  you,  blast  through 'them;  plant 
in  me  what  you  will,  and,  climate  permitting,  it  shall 
grow;  but  as  for  your  leaving  me,  and  speeding  off 
into  infinite  space  on  a  vagabond  excursion  round  the 
sun  on  your  own  account,  that  you  shall  not  do,  so 
help  me  —  gravitation  ! " 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  Come-outer,  in  his 
z,eal  for  abstract  morality,  glories  in  a  heiroic  indif- 
ference to  consequences,  and  a  conscientious  blindness 
to  the  mutual  relations  of  rights  and  duties.  In- 
trenched in  some  passionate  proposition,  he  exhibits 
a  perfect  mastery  of  that  logic  of  anarchy  by  which 
single  virtues,  detached  from  their  relations,  are 
pushed  into  fanaticism  and  almost  take  the  form  of 
vices.  Virtue  consists  in  the  harmony  of  virtues; 
/  but,  divorcing  moral  insight  from  moral  sentiment, 
he  ignores  the  complexity  of  the  world's  practical 
affairs,  and  would  go,  in  the  spirit  of  Schiller's  zealot, 

"  Right  onward  like  the  lightning  and 
The  cannon-ball,  opening  with  murderous  crash 
His  way  to  blast  and  ruin." 


THE   AMERICAN  MIND.  145 

Indeed,  he  sometimes  brings  to  mind  the  story  of 
that  wise  man  who,  when  he  desired  to  make  a  cup 
of  tea,  could  hit  upon  no  happier  contrivance  for 
boiling  the  kettle  than  by  placing  it  in  the  kitchen 
and  setting  his  house  on  fire.  Again,  he  is  some- 
times raised  to  such  a  height  of  feverish  indignation 
as  to  mistake  his  raptures  of  moral  rage  for  prophet- 
ic fury,  and  anticipates  the  stern,  sure,  silent  march 
of  avenging  laws  with  a  blast  that  splits  the  brazen 
throats  of  denunciation's  hundred  trumpets.  In  view 
of  the  evils  of  the  world  he  seems  hungry  for  a  fire 
from  heaven  to  smite  and  consume  iniquity.  His 
prayer  seems  continually  to  be,  "  O  Lord,  why  so 
slow  ? "  and,  though  this  discontent  may  be  termed  by 
some  enthusiasts  a  divine  impatience,  it  appears  to  be 
rather  an  impatience  with  Divinity.  It  is  the  exact 
opposite  of  that  sublime  repose  in  the  purposes  of 
Providence  expressed  by  the  philosophical  historian, 
that  "  God  moves  through  history  as  the  giants  of 
Homer  through  space :  he  takes  a  step,  —  and  ages 
have  rolled  away  ! " 

Doubtless,  in  this  class  of  extreme  social  Protest- 
ants,—  a  class  whose  peculiarities  we  have  almost 
heightened  to  caricature,  in  attempting  to  individu- 
alize its  ideal,  —  there  is  much  talent,  much  disinter- 
eptedness,  much  unflinching  courage ;  and,  if  they 
7  J 


146  THE   AMERICAN   BUND. 

would  make  a  modest  contribution  of  these  to  the 
nation's  moral  life,  they  and  society  would  both  be 
gainers ;  but  they  are  "  self-withdrawn  into  such  a  won- 
drous depth  "of  hostile  seclusion,  that  they  are  only 
visible  in  their  occasional  incursions,  or  when  they 
encamp  in  the  community  during  Anniversary  Week. 
They  are  not,  in  fact,  more  narrow,  more  ridden  by 
their  one  idea  of  morals,  than  many  of  our  practical 
men,  who  are  ridden  by  their  one  idea  of  money; 
but  their  extravagance  of  phrase,  almost  annihilating, 
as  it  does,  the  meaning  of  words  considered  as  signs 
of  things,  prevents  their  influencing  the  people  they 
attack;  and,  after  beginning  with  a  resounding  prom- 
ise to  reform  the  world,  they  too  often  end  in  a 
desperate  emulation  among  themselves  to  bear  off  tlie 
palm  in  vehemence  of  execration,  launched  against  all 
those  organized  institutions  by  which  society  is  pro- 
tected from  the  worst  consequences  of  its  worldliness, 
selfishness,  sensuality,  and  crime. 

As  the  class  of  persons  to  which  we  have  just  re- 
ferred push  the  principle  of  individualism  to  the  ex- 
tent of  forswearing  allegiance  to  the  community,  so 
there  is  another  class,  on  the  opposite  extreme,  who 
carry  the  doctrine  of  a  Providence  in  human  affairs 
to  a  fatalistic  conclusion,  which  they  are  pleased  to 
call  Manifest  Destiny ;  a  doctrine  which  baptizes  rob- 


THE   AMERICAN   MINI).  147 

bery  and  murder  as  providential  phenomena,  —  what 
kind  and  condescending  patrons  of  Providence  these 
blackguards  are,  to  be  sure!  —  of  inherent  national 
tendencies ;  considers  national  sins  simply  as  neces- 
sary events  in  the  nation's  progress  to  glory ;  and,  by 
treating  every  direction  given  to  the  public  mind  as 
inevitable,  is  sure  to  inflame  and  pamper  the  worst. 
This  dogma  —  the  coinage  of  rogues,  who  find  it 
very  convenient  to  call  man's  guilt  by  the  name  of 
God's  providence  —  mostly  obtains  on  the  southern 
frontier  of  our  country,  where  the  settlers,  amidst 
their  forests  and  swamps,  have  a  delectable  view  of 
the  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  which  destiny 
manifestly  intends  they  shall  occupy,  on  the  clearest 
principles  of  the  argumentation  of  rapine.  It  must 
be  admitted  that  this  class  of  our  fellow-sinners  and 
citizens,  by  holding  up  endless  war  and  hectic  glory 
in  the  faces  of  our  shrewd  and  prudent  worldlings, 
scare  them  much  more  than  the  hottest  and  hearti- 
est invectives  of  the  reformers.  We  bear,  it  seems, 
with  bland  composure  the  charge  of  being  robbers 
and  murderers,  tyrants  and  liberticides  ;  but  our  blood 
runs  cold  at  the  vision  of  a  bomb  descending  into 
Boston  or  New  York,  or  the  awful  calamity  in- 
volved in  the  idea  of  United  States  sixes  going 
below  par' 


148  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

Manifest  Destiny  is,  of  course,  a  tempestuoujjly- 
furious  patriot,  whose  speech  —  ever  under  a  high 
pressure  of  bombast  —  is  plentifully  bedizened  with 
metaphors  of  his  country's  stars  and  stripes,  and  rap- 
turous anticipations  of  the  rascal's  "  good  time  com- 
ing." Among  other  Satanic  fallacies  he  has  one, 
conned  out  of  the  Devil's  prayer-book,  called,  "  Our 
country,  right  or  wrong ! "  a  stupid  fallacy  at  the  best, 
when  we  consider  that  the  activity  of  every  nation 
is  bounded  by  inexorable  moral  laws  as  by  walls  of 
fire,  to  pass  which  is  to  be  withered  up  and  con- 
sumed; but  especially  fallacious  from  his  lips,  when 
we  reflect  that,  practically,  he  inverts  the  maxim, 
and  really  means,  "  Our  country,  wrong  or  right,  with 
a  decided  preference  for  the  former."  Spite  of  all 
professions,  we  must  doubt  the  fidelity  of  that  sailor 
who,  in  a  hurricane,  shows  his  devotion  to  his  ship 
by  assisting  her  tendency  downward  ;  and,  on  the  same 
principle,  we  may  doubt  Mr.  Manifest  Destiny's  all- 
for-glory,  nothing-for-money  patriotism. 

The  fallacy,  indeed,  of  the  fatalistic  scheme,  as 
applied  to  nations,  is  the  same  as  when  applied  to 
individuals ;  and  its  doctrine  of  inevitable  tendencies 
comes  from  considering  mind  as  a  blind  force,  not  as 
an  intelligent,  responsible,  self-directing  energy.  A 
plastic,    fluid,    impressible    national    mind,    Jike    the 


THE   AMERICAN    MIND.  l49 

American,  receives  a  new  impulse  and  diiection  for 
every  grand  sentiment,  every  great  thought,  every 
heroic  act,  every  honest  life,  contributed  to  it;  and 
that  philosophy  which  screams  out  to  reasonable  citi- 
zens, "  The  tendency  of  the  nation  is  toward  the 
edge  of  the  bottomless  pit,  therefore,  patriotically  as- 
sist the  movement,"  is  the  insane  climax  of  the  non 
sequitur  in  political  logic.  Why,  we  can  shield  our- 
selves from  such  a  conclusion,  with  no  better  reason- 
ing than  that  employed  by  the  grave-digger  in  Hamlet, 
in  discussing  the  question  of  suicide :  *'  Here  lies  the 
water ;  here  stands  the  man :  if  the  man  go  to  the 
water  and  drown  himself,  it  is  —  will  he,  nill  he  —  he 
goes;  but  if  the  water  come  to  him,  and  drown  him, 
he  drowns  not  himself:  argal,  he  that  is  not  guilty 
of  his  own  death  shortens  not  his  own  life."  We 
may  be  sure  that  no  nation,  which  goes  not  to  the 
fire,  will  ever  have  the  fire  come  to  it.  Heaven  is 
liberal  of  its  blessings  and  benignities,  but  it  prac- 
tises a  rigid  economy  in  dispensing  its  smiting  curses, 
and  lets  loose  its  reluctant  angels  of  calamity  and 
death  only  as  they  are  drawn  down  by  the  impious 
prayers  of  folly  and  crime ! 

If  the  too  exclusive  direction  of  the  American 
mind  to  industrial  production  has  not  been  much 
checked  by  the  two  antagonistic  extremes  of  radical- 


150  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

ism  its  money-ocracy  has  provoked,  and  for  whose 
excesses  it  is  to  a  great  degree  responsible,  we  must 
look  for  a  healthier  opposition  to  it  in  tlie  various 
classes  of  moderate  dissentients  and  reformers,  who 
are  not  so  much  disgusted  with  the  community  as  to 
lose  all  power  of  influencing  it,  and  who  are  steadily 
infusing  into  their  own  and  the  national  character 
loftier  ideas  and  more  liberalizing  tastes.  Our  church- 
es, collegiate  institutions,  and  numerous  societies  es- 
tablished for  moral  and  benevolent  ends,  are  connected 
with  the  national  mind,  and  at  the  same  time  are 
inspired  by  influences  apart  from  it ;  but  still,  we 
must  admit  that  just  in  proportion  as  the  nation's 
life  circulates  through  them  is  their  tendency  to  tem- 
porize with  Mammon.  The  Church,  for  instance,  ex- 
ercises a  vast  and  beneficent  influence  in  spreading 
moral  and  religious  ideas;  but  do  we  not  often  hear 
sermons  in  which  industrial  prosperity  is  uncon- 
sciously baptized  with  great  pomp  of  sacred  rhetoric  ? 
and  prayers,  in  which  railroads  and  manufactories 
hold  a  place  among  Divine  favors  altogether  diflerent 
from  the  estimate  in  which  they  are  held  above? 
Do  we,  mad  as  we  all  are  after  riches,  hear  often 
enough  from  the  pulpit  the  spirit  of  those  words  in 
which  Dean  Swift,  in  his  epitaph  on  the  affluent  and 
profligate  Colonel  Chartres,  announces   the   small  es- 


THE    AMERICAN   MIND.  151 

teem  of  wealth  in  the  eyes  of  God,  from  the  fact  of 
his  thus  lavishing  it  upon  the  meanest  and  basest  of 
his  creatures? 

Our  theology  is  closer  to  the  public  mind,  both  to 
act  and  to  be  acted  upon,  than  our  literature.  In- 
deed, if  we  take  the  representative  men  of  those 
classes  whose  productions,  ethical,  poetical,  and  artis- 
tical,  we  call  American  literature  and  art,  we  shall 
find  that  the  national  life  is  not  so  much  their  inspi- 
ration as  it  is  the  object  they  would  inspire.  Chan- 
ning  and  Allston,  for  instance,  have  a  purified  deli- 
cacy and  refinement  of  nature,  a  constant  reference 
to  the  universal  m  morals  and  taste,  and  a  want  of 
ruddy  and  robust  strength,  indicating  that  they  have 
not  risen  genially  out  of  the  national  mind,  and  be- 
traying, in  all  their  words  and  colors,  that  surround- 
ing influences  were  hostile  rather  than  sustaining  to 
their  genius.  Their  works,  accordingly,  have  neither 
the  exclusiveness  nor  the  raciness  and  gusto  charac- 
teristic of  genius  which  is  national.  The  same  prin- 
ciple applies  to  our  poetical  literature,  which  worships 
Beauty,  but  not  beautiful  America.  If  you  observe 
the  long  line  of  the  English  poets,  Chaucer,  Shake- 
speare, Ben  Jonson,  Dryden,  Pope,  Byron,  with  hardly 
the  exceptions  of  Spenser  and  Milton,  you  will  find 
that,  howevei  heaven-high  some  of  them  are  in  ele- 


152  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

vation,  they  all  rest  on  the  solid  base  of  English 
character ;  idealize,  realize,  or  satirize  English  history 
customs,  or  scenery,  English  modes  of  thought  and 
forms  of  society,  English  manners  or  want  of  manners, 
English  life  and  English  men,  —  are  full,  in  short, 
of  English  blood.  But  our  most  eminent  poets  — 
Dana,  Emerson,  Bryant,  Longfellow,  Lowell  —  are 
more  or  less  idealists,  from  the  necessity  of  their 
position.  Though  they  may  represent  the  woods  and 
streams  of  American  nature,  they  commonly  avoid 
the  passions  and  thoughts  of  American  human  nature. 
The  "  haunt  and  main  region  of  their  song  "  is  man 
rather  than  men;  humanity  in  its  simple  elements, 
rather  than  complex  combinations ;  and  their  mission 
is  to  stand  somewhat  apart  from  the  rushing  stream 
of  American  industrial  life,  and,  assimilating  new  ele- 
ments from  other  literatures,  or  directly  from  visible 
nature,  to  pour  into  that  stream,  as  rills  into  a  rivei, 
thoughtfulness,  and  melody,  and  beauty.  Their  pro- 
ductions being  thus  contributions  to  the  national 
mind,  rather  than  offsprings  of  it,  are  contempla- 
tive rather  than  lyrical,  didactic  rather  than  dra- 
matic. 

Perhaps  the  fairest  and  least  flattering  expression 
of  our  whole  national  life  may  be  found  in  our  poli- 
tics; for  in  limited  monarchies  and  in  democracies  it 


TEE   AMERICAN    MIND.  158 

is  in  politics  tliat  all  that  there  is  in  the  public  mind 
of  servility,  stupidity,  ferocity,  and  unreasoning  pre- 
judice is  sure  to  come  glaringly  out ;  and  certainly 
our  politics  will  compare  favorably  with  those  of 
Greoce  and  Rome,  of  France  and  England,  in  re- 
spect either  to  intelligence  or  morality.  In  no  coun- 
try is  the  government  more  narrowly  watched ;  in  no 
country  do  large  parties,  bound  together  by  an  inter- 
est, more  readily  fall  apart  on  a  principle ;  and  when 
we  consider  that,  in  practical  politics,  force  and  pas- 
sion, not  reason  and  judgment,  are  predominant,  — 
that  men  vote  with  a  storm  of  excitement  hurrying 
them  on,  —  this  fact  indicates  that  the  minor  morali- 
ties have  to  a  great  extent  become  instincts  with  the 
people.  It  would  be  impossible  to  give  here  even  a 
scanty  view  of  this  political  expression  of  our  national 
mind  with  its  sectional  contests,  its  struggles  of  free- 
dom with  slavery,  its  war  of  abstract  philosophies  on 
concrete  interests,  its  impassioned  moralities,  and  no 
less  impassioned  immoralities ;  but  perhaps  a  few 
remarks  on  three  great  statesmen,  who  are  marked 
by  unmistakable  local  and  national  traits,  and  who 
were  genuine  products  of  American  life,  may  not  be 
out  of  place  even  here.  We  refer  to  Webster,  Clay, 
and  Calhoun.  These,  though  "  dead,  yet  speak " ; 
and  we  shall  allude  to  them  as  if  they  still  occupied 
7* 


154  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

bodily'  that  position  in  our  politics  which  they  un- 
questionably occupy  mentally.  Such  men  can  only  die 
with  the  movements  they  originated. 

Of  these  three  eminences  of  our  politics,  of  late 
years,  Webster  may  be  called  the  most  comprehen- 
sive statesman,  Clay  the  most  accomplished  politician, 
and  Calhoun  the  nimblest  and  most  tenacious  sec- 
tional partisan.  Webster,  on  the  first  view,  seems  a 
kind  of  Roman-Englishman,  —  a  sort  of  cross  between 
Cincinnatus  and  Burke ;  but,  examined  more  closely, 
he  is  found  to  be  a  natural  elevation  in  the  progress 
of  American  life,  a  man  such  as  New  Hampshire 
bore  him,  and  such  as  Winthrop  and  Standish, 
Washington  and  Jay,  Hamilton  and  Madison,  have  . 
made  him;  a  man  who  drew  the  nutriment  of  char- 
acter altogether  from  American  influences ;  and,  es- 
pecially, a  man  representing  the  iron  of  the  national 
character  as  distinguished  from  its  quicksilver.  The 
principal  wealth  of  New  Hampshire  is  great  men  and 
water-power ;  but,  instead  of  keeping  them  to  herself, 
she  squanders  them  on  Massachusetts,  and  Webster 
was  one  of  these  free  gifts. 

If  we  compare  Webster  with  Calhoun,  we  shall  find 
in  both  the  same  firm  mental  grasp  of  principles,  the 
same  oversight  of  the  means  of  popularity,  and  the 
same   ungraceful   and   almost   sullen   self-assertion,  at 


THE   AMERICAN   MIND.  155 

periods  when  policy  would  have  dictated  a  more  fa- 
cile accommodativeness.  Their  intellects,  though  both 
in  some  degree  entangled  by  local  interests  and 
opinions,  have  inherent  differences,  visible  at  a  glance. 
Webster's  mind  has  more  massiveness  than  Calhoun's, 
is  richer  in  culture  and  variety  of  faculty,  and  is 
gifted  with  a  wider  sweep  of  argumentation ;  bu.t  it 
is  not  so  completely  compacted  \^ith  character,  and 
has,  accordingly,  less  inflexible  and  untiring  persist- 
ence toward  an  object.  Both  are  comparatively  un- 
impressible,  but  Webster's  understanding  recognizes 
and  includes  facts  which  his  imagination  may  refuse 
to  assimilate ;  while  Calhoun  arrogantly  ignores  every- 
thing which  contradicts  his  favorite  opinions.  The 
mind  of  Webster,  weighty,  solid,  and  capacious,  looks 
before  and  after ;  by  its  insight  reads  principles  in 
events,  by  its  foresight  reads  events  in  principles 
and,  arching  gloriously  over  all  the  phenomena  of  a 
widely  complex  subject  of  contemplation,  views  things, 
not  singly,  but  in  their  multitudinous  relations ;  yet 
the  very  comprehension  of  his  vision  makes  him 
somewhat  timid,  and  his  moderation,  accordingly,  lacks 
the  crowning  grace  of  moral  audacity.  Calhoun  has 
audacity,  but  lacks  comprehensiveness. 

As  Webster's  mind,  from  its  enlargement  of  vie\r, 
has   an   instinctive   intellectual    conscientiousness,  the 


156  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

processes  of  his  reasoning  are  principally  inductive, 
rising  from  facts  to  principles ;  while  Calhoun's  are 
principally  deductive,  descending  from  principles  to 
facts.  Now  deduction  is  doubtless  a  sublime  exercise 
of  logical  genius,  provided  the  principle  be  reached  — 
as  it  is  reaclif  1  by  Webster,  when  he  uses  the  pro- 
cess—  by  induction;  for  it  gives  the  mind  power  to 
divine  the  future,  and  converts  prophecy  into  a  science. 
Thus,  from  the  deductive  law  of  gravitation  we  can 
predict  the  appearance  of  stellar  phenomena  thousands 
of  years  hence.  Edmund  Burke  is  the  greatest  of 
British  statesmen,  in  virtue  of  his  discovery  and  ap- 
plication of  deductive  laws  applicable  to  society  and 
government.  But  the  mischief  of  Calhoun's  deductive 
method  is,  that,  by  nature  or  position,  his  understand- 
ing is  controlled  by  his  will ;  and,  consequently,  his 
principles  are  often  arbitrarily  or  capriciously  chosen, 
do  not  rise  out  of  the  nature  of  things,  but  out  of 
the  nature  of  Mr.  Calhoun  ;  and  therefore  it  is  fre- 
quently true  of  him,  what  Macaulay  untruly  declares 
of  Burke,  that  "  he  chooses  his  position  like  a  fanat- 
ic, and  defends  it  like  a  philosopher,"  —  as  it  might 
be  said  that  Clay  chooses  his  like  a  tactician,  and  de- 
fends it  like  a  fanatic.    " 

If  we  carefully  study  the  speeches  of  Webster  and 
Calhoun,  in  one  of  those  great  Congressional  battles 


/;5 


THE   AMERICAN   MND.  ^/  1>  ,     157  *  '    // 

where  they  were  fairly  pitted  against  et^chT  c^er,  wer  <  y 
shall   find    that    Webster's    mind    darts    beneatV  ilf(i .  ^ 

. '  V  / 

smooth  and  rapid  stream  of  his  opponent's  deductive  f  .  \ 
argument  at  a  certain  point,  —  fastens  fatally  on  some 
phrase,  or  fact,  or  admission,  in  which  the  fallacy 
lurks,  —  and  then  devotes  his  reply  to  a  searching 
analysis  and  logical  overthrow  of  that,  without  heed- 
ing the  rest.  Calhoun,  of  course,  has  the  ready 
rejoinder  that  the  thing  demolished  is  twisted  out  of 
its  relations;  and  then,  with  admirable  control  of  his 
face,  proceeds  to  dip  into  Webster's  inductive  argu- 
ment, to  extract  some  fact  or  principle  which  is  in- 
dissolubly  related  to  what  goes  before  and  comes 
after,  and  thus  really  misrepresents  the  reasoning  he 
seemingly  answers.  To  overthrow  Calhoun  you  have, 
like  Napoleon  at  Wagram,  only  to  direct  a  tremen- 
dous blow  at  the  centre;  to  overthrow  Webster, 
like  Napoleon  at  Borodino,  you  must  rout  the  whole 
line. 

In  the  style  of  the  two  men  we  have,  perhaps, 
the  best  expression  of  their  character;  for  style,  it 
has  been  well  said,  "is  the  measure  of  power,  —  as 
the  waves  of  the  sea  answer  to  the  winds  that  call 
them  up."  Webster's  style  varies  with  the  moods 
of  his  mind,  —  short,  crisp,  biting,  in  sarcasm ;  lumi- 
nous and  even  in  statement ;  rigid,  condensed,  massive, 


168  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

.  •     . 

in   argumentation  •,   lofty   and   resounding    in   feeling 

fierce,  hot,  direct,  overwhelming,  in  pas&ion.  Cal- 
houn's has  the  uniform  vigor  and  clear  precision  of 
a  spoken  essay. 

Clay  —  the  love  of  American  economics,  as  Web- 
ster was  the  pride  —  had  all  those  captivating  per- 
sonal qualities  which  attract  men's  admiration,  at  the 
same  time  that  they  enforce  their  respect;  and  was 
especially  gifted  wath  that  flexibility,  —  that  prompt, 
intuitive,  heart-winning  grace,  —  which  his  great  con- 
temporaries lacked.  The  secret  of  his  influence  must 
not  be  sought  in  his  printed  speeches.  We  never  go 
to  them  as  we  go  to  Webster's  and  Calhoun's  for 
political  philosophy  and  vehement  logic.  But  if 
Webster  as  an  orator  was  inductive,  and  convinced 
the  reason,  and  Calhoun  deductive,  and  dazzled  the 
reason.  Clay  was  most  assuredly  seductive,  and  car- 
ried the  votes.  The  nature  of  Clay,  without  being 
deficient  in  force,  was  plastic  and  fluid,  readily  ac- 
commodating itself  to  the  moment's  exigency,  and 
more  solicitous  to  comprehend  all  the  elements  of 
party  power  than  all  the  elements  of  poli*-ical  thought. 
His  faculties  and  passions  seem  all  to  have  united  in 
one  power  of  personal  impressiveness,  and  that  per- 
sonality once  penetrated  a  whole  party,  bound  togeth- 
er discordant   interests   and    antipathies,    made    itself 


THE   AMERICAN   MIND.  159 

felt  as  inspiration  equally  in  Maine  and  Louisiana, 
concentrated  in  itself  the  enthusiasm  of  sense  for 
principles,  and  of  sensibility  for  men ;  and  these,  the 
qualities  of  a  powerful  political  leader,  who  makes  all 
the  demagogues  work  for  him,  without  being  himself 
a  demagogue,  indicated  his  possession  of  something,  at 
least,  of  that 

"  Mystery  of  commanding  ; 
That  birth-hour  gift,  that  art-Napoleon, 
Of  winning,  fettering,  wielding,  moulding,  banding 
The  hearts  of  millions,  till  they  move  as  one." 

But  the  fact  that  Clay  never  reached  the  object 
of  his  ambition  proves  that  he  was  not  a  perfect 
specimen  of  the  kind  of  character  to  which  he  be- 
longed ;  and  his  personality,  —  swift,  fusing,  potent  as 
it  was,  —  alert,  compromising,  supple  as  it  was, — 
still  was  not  under  thoroughly  wise  direction  ;  and  a 
sense  of  honor  morbidly  quick,  and  a  resentment  of 
slight  nervously  egotistic,  sometimes  urged  our  most 
accomplished  politician  into  impolitic  acts,  w^hich  lev- 
elled the  labors  of  years. 

Perhaps  the  best  test  even  of  a  man's  intellect  is 
the  way  he  demeans  himself  when  he  is  enraged; 
and  in  this  Webster  was  pre-eminent  above  all 
American  orators,  while  Calhoun  was  apt  to  lose  his 
balance,  and  become  petty  and  passionate,  and    Clay 


160  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

to  exhibit  a  kind  of  glorious  recklessness.  Most  of 
the  faults  of  Webster  proceeded  from  his  comprehen- 
siveness of  understanding  being  often  unaccompanied 
by  a  vigorous  impetus  from  sentiment  and  feeling ; 
and  some  of  his  orations  are  therefore  unimpassioned 
statements  and  arguments,  which,  however  much  they 
may  claim  our  assent  as  logicians,  do  not  stir,  and 
thrill,  and  move  us  as  men.  Coming  from  but  one 
portion  of  his  own  nature,  they  touch  only  one  portion 
of  the  nature  of  others,  and  wield  no  dominion  over 
the  will.  Such  was  his  celebrated  speech  on  the  Slav 
ery  question,  which  so  many  found  difficult  to  answer 
and  impossible  to  accept.  Not  so  was  it  when  passion 
and  sentiment  penetrated  his  understanding;  for,  in 
Webster,  passion  was  a  fire  which  fused  intellect  and 
character  into  one  tremendous  personal  force,  and 
then  burst  out  that  resistless  eloquence  in  which  words 
have  the  might  and  meaning  of  things,  —  that  true 
mental  electricity,  not  seen  in  dazzling,  zigzag  flashes, 
—  not  heard  in  a  grand,  reverberating  peal  over  the 
head,  —  but  in  w  hich,  mingling  the  qualities  of  light 
and  sound,  the  blue  bright  flame  startles  and  stings  the 
eye  at  the  very  moment  the  sharp  crash  pierces  and 
stuns  the  ear.  No  brow  smitten  by  that  bolt,  though  the 
brow  of  a  Titan,  could  ever  afterward  lift  itself  above 
the  crowd  without  being  marked  by  its  enduring  scar ; 


THE   AMERICAN   MIND.  161 

and  it  was  well  that  a  great,  and  not  easily  moved, 
nature,  abundantly  tried  by  all  that  frets  and  teases 
the  temper,  should  thus  have  borne  within  himself 
such  a  terrible  instrument  of  avenging  justice,  when 
meanness  presumed  too  far  on  the  moderation  of  that 
large  intellect,  when  insolence  goaded  too  sharply  that 
sullen  fortitude ! 

The  three  great  statesmen  to  whom  we  have  re- 
ferred, taken  together,  cover  three  all'-important  ele- 
ments in  every  powerful  national  mind,  —  ret?istance, 
persistence,  and  impressibility ;  and  each,  by  repre- 
senting at  the  same  time  some  engrossing  industrial 
interest,  indicates  that  practical  direction  of  the  na- 
tional energies  to  which  we  have  all  along  referred. 
In  this  region  of  industry  the  nation  has  been  grand- 
ly creative ;  and,  by  establishing  the  maxim  that  the 
production  of  wealth  is  a  matter  secondary  to  its 
distribution,  it  promises  to  be  as  grandly  beneficent. 
But,  perhaps,  in  the  art  and  science  of  government  it 
has  been  more  creative  and  more  beneficent  than  in  the 
province  of  industry.  The  elements  of  order  and  radi- 
calism it  embosoms  are  in  a  healthy  rather  than  de- 
structive conflict,  so  that  we  may  hope  that  even  the 
problem  of  slavery  will  be  settled  without  any  wide- 
spread ruin  and  devastation.  The  mischief  of  radi- 
calism  in   other   countries  is,  that   it   commences  ref- 


162  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

ormation  by  abjuring  law;  accordingly,  it  opposes 
political  power  on  the  principles  of  anarchy,  and 
wields  it  on  the  principles  of  despotism.  Here  the 
toughest  problem  in  the  science  of  government  has 
been  practically  solved,  by  the  expedient  of  legaliz- 
ing resistance;  and  thus,  by  providing  legal  inlets 
and  outlets  for  insurrection  and  revolution,  we  reap 
the  benefits  of  rebellion,  and  avoid  its  appalling  evils.* 
A  nation  which  has  done  this  can  afford  to  bear 
some  taunts  on  its  vices  and  defects,  especially  as 
its  sensitive  vanity  impels  it  to  appropriate  the  truth 
contained  in  every  sarcasm  under  which  it  winces. 

It  now  remains  to  ask  how  a  national  mind  like 
the  American,  with  its  powers  generally  directed  by 
its  sentiments  to  commerce,  industrial  production,  law, 
and  politics,  —  which  are  the  most  lucrative  occupa- 
tions,—  and  but  relatively  directed  to  reforms, — 
which  are  the  most  unprofitable,  —  how  it  appears 
when  tested  by  those  virtues  which  are  the  conditions 
of  a  nation's  durable  strength?  The  question  is  not 
one  of  particulars,  because,  in  every  social  system,  no 
matter  how  far  advanced  in  humane  culture,  there 
will  always  be  individuals  and  small  classes  repre- 
senting the  vices  of  every  grade  of  civilization  which 

^*  The  crime  of  the   Southern  Rebellion  specially  consisted  in 
violating  this  fundamental  principle  of  American  politics. 


THE   AMERICAN   MIND.  168 

Mstory  or  tradition  has  recorded,  from  cannilals  all 
the  way  down  to  dandies.  We  have  our  share  of 
New  Zealand  and  our  share  of  Almacks ;  but  in 
viewing  a  national  mind  we  must  fasten  on  the 
strongest  elements  and  the  average  humanity.  Looked 
at  from  this  liberal  point,  American  life  would  bear 
comparatively  well  the  tests  of  prudence,  moderation, 
and  benevolence;  a  little  less  confidently,  those  of 
veracity,  steadfastness,  and  justice ;  and  considerably 
less  those  of  beauty,  heroism,  and  self-devotion. 

But  it  is  not  so  much  in  the  present  as  in  the  fu- 
ture that  we  have  the  grandest  vision  of  the  Amer- 
ican mind.  We  have  seen  that  its  organic  substance, 
as  distinguished  from  the  unassimilated  elements  in 
contact  or  conflict  with  it,  is  solidly  and  productively 
practical ;  and  as  it  is  a  sleepless  energy,  resisting, 
persisting,  and  impressible,  we  may  hope  that  it  will 
transmute  into  itself  the  best  life  of  other  national 
minds,  without  having  its  individuality  overwhelmed ; 
that  it  will  be  strong  and  beautiful  with  their  virtues 
and  accomplishments,  without  being  weak  with  their 
vices  and  limitations ;  and  that,  continually  enriched 
by  new  and  various  mental  life,  it  will  result  in  being 
%  comprehensive  national  mind,  harmoniously  com- 
bining characteristics  caught  from  all  nations,  —  so 
that  Greece  might  in  it  recognize  beauty,  and  Rome 


164  THE   AMERICAN   MIND. 

will,  and  Germany  earnestness,  and  Italy  art,  anJ 
France  vivacity,  and  Ireland  impulse,  and  England 
tenacity.  It  is  in  this  contemplation  of  America  as 
a  conquering  Mind  that  we  should  most  delight, — a 
mind  worthy  of  the  broad  continent  it  is  to  overarch, 
—  a  mind  too  sound  at  the  core  for  ignorance  to  stu- 
pefy, or  avarice  to  harden,  or  lust  of  power  to  con- 
sume,—  a  mind  full  in  the  line  of  the  historical 
progress  of  the  race,  holding  wide  relations  with  all 
communities  and  all  times,  listening  to  every  word 
of  cheer  or  warning  muttered  from  dead  or  thundered 
from  living  lips,  and  moving  down  the  solemn  path- 
way of  the  ages,  an  image  of  just,  intelligent,  benefi- 
cent Power ! 

1867. 


VI. 

THE  ENGLISH  MIND. 

IT  is  hardly  necessary  for  us  to  say  that  a  nation 
is  not  a  mere  aggregation  of  existing  individu- 
als, or  collection  of  provinces  and  colonies,  but  an 
organic  living  body  of  laws,  institutions,  manners,  and 
literature,  whose  present  condition  is  the  result  of  the 
slow  growth  of  ages,  and  whose  roots  stretch  far  back 
into  the  past  life  of  the  people.  By  a  national  mind 
we  mean  the  whole  moral  and  mental  life  of  a 
nation,  as  embodied  in  its  facts  and  latent  in  its 
sentiments  and  ideas.  This  body  of  mind,  the  organ- 
ization of  centuries,  exercises,  in  virtue  of  its  mass, 
a  positive  attractive  force  on  all  individual  minds 
within  the  sphere  of  its  influence,  compelling  them 
to  be  partakers  of  the  thoughts  and  passions  of  the 
national  heart  and  brain,  and  receiving  in  return 
their  contributions  of  individual  thoughts  and  passions. 
Now  a  national  mind  is  great  according  to  the  vitality 
and  vigor  at  the  centre  of  its  being,  the  fidelity  with 
which   it   resists   whatever   is   foreign  to  its   own   na 


166  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

ture,  and  its  consequent  perseverance  in  its  own 
inherent  laws  of  development.  Tried  by  these  tests, 
that  pyramidal  organism,  with  John  Bull  at  the  base 
and  Shakespeare  at  the  apex,  which  we  call  the 
English  mind,  is  unexcelled,  if  not  unequalled,  in 
modern  times  for  its  sturdy  force  of  being,  its  mus- 
cular strength  of  faculty,  the  variety  of  its  directing 
sentiments,  and  its  tough  hold  upon  existence.  No 
other  national  mind  combines  such  vast  and  various 
creativeness,  and  presents  so  living  a  synthesis  of 
seemingly  elemental  contradictions,  which  is  at  the 
same  time  marked  by  such  distinctness  of  individual 
features.  That  imperial  adjective,  English,  fits  its 
sedition  as  well  as  its  servility,  its  radicalism  as  well 
as  its  conservatism,  its  squalor  as  well  as  its  splendor, 
its  vice  as  well  as  its  virtue,  its  morality  and  relig- 
ion as  well  as  its  politics  and  government.  The 
unity  of  its  nature  is  never  lost  in  all  the  prodigious 
variety  of  its  manifestation.  Prince,  peasant,  Cavalier, 
Roundhead,  Whig,  Tory,  poet,  penny-a-liner,  philan- 
thropist, ruffian,  —  William  Wilberforce  in  Parliament, 
Richard  Turpin  on  the  York  road,  —  all  agree  in 
being  English,  all  agree  in  a  common  contempt, 
blatant  or  latent,  for  everything  not  English.  Lib- 
erty is  English,  wisdom  is  English,  philosophy  is 
English,  religion   is    English,  earth  is  English,  mv   is 


THE  ENGLISH   MIND.  167 

iJnglish,  heaven  is  English,  hell  is  English.  And 
this  imperious  dogmatism,  too,  has  none  of  the  uneasy 
self-distrust  which  peeps  through  the  vociferous  brag 
of  corresponding  American  phenomena  ;  but,  express- 
ing its  seated  faith  in  egotism's  most  exquisite  non 
sequiturs,  it  says  stoutly,  with  Parson  Adams,  "  A 
schoolmaster  is  the  greatest  of  men,  and  I  am  the 
greatest  of  schoolmasters  "  ;  and,  moreover,  it  believes 
what  it  says.  The  quality  is  not  in  the  tongue,  but 
in  the  character  of  the  nation. 

This  solid  self-confidence  and  pride  of  nationality, 
this  extraordinary  content  with  the  image  reflected  in 
the  mirror  of  self-esteem,  indicates  that  the  national 
mind  is  not  tormented  by  the  subtle  sting  of  abstract 
opinions  or  the  rebuking  glance  of  unrealized  ideals, 
but  that  its  reason  and  imagination  work  on  the  level 
of  its  Will.  The  essential  peculiarity,  therefore,  of 
the  English  Mind  is  its  basis  in  Character,  and  con- 
sequent hold  upon  facts  and  disregard  of  abstractions. 
Coarse,  strong,  massive,  sturdy,  practical,  —  organizing 
its  thoughts  into  faculties,  and  toughening  its  faculties 
into  the  consistency  of  muscle  and  bone,  —  its  whole 
soul  is  so  embodied  and  embrained,  that  it  imprints 
on  its  most  colossal  mental  labors  the  stern  charac- 
teristics of  sheer  physical  strength.  It  not  only  has 
fire,  but   fuel    eno.ugh   to  feed  its   fire.     Its  thoughts 


168  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

are  acts,  its  theories  are  institutions,  its  volitions  are 
events.  It  has  no  ideas  not  inherent  in  its  own 
organization,  or  which  it  has  not  assimilated  and 
absorbed  into  its  own  nature  by  collision  or  com- 
munion with  other  national  minds.  It  is  enriched 
but  never  overpowered  by  thoughts  and  impulses 
from  abroad,  for  whatever  it  receives  it  forces  into 
harmony  with  its  own  broadening  processes  of  inte- 
rior development.  Thus  the  fiery,  quick-witted,  wilful 
and  unscrupulous  Norman  encamped  in  its  domains, 
and  being  unable  to  reject  him,  and  its  own  stubborn 
vitality  refusing  to  succumb,  it  slowly  and  sullenly, 
through  long  centuries,  absorbed  him  into  itself,  and 
blended  fierce  Norman  pride  and  swift  Norman  intel- 
ligence with  its  own  solid  substance  of  sense  and 
humor.  By  the  same  jealous  and  resisting,  but  assim- 
ilative method,  it  gradually  incorporated  the  principles 
of  Roman  law  into  its  jurisprudence,  and  the  spirit  of 
Italian,  Spanish,  and  German  thought  into  its  litera- 
ture, receiving  nothing,  however,  which  it  did  not 
modify  with  its  own  individuality,  and  scrawling 
"England,  her  mark,"  equally  on  what  it  borrowed 
and  what  it  created. 

A  national  mind  thus  rooted  in  character,  with  an 
organizing  genius  directed  by  homely  sentiments,  and 
with  its  sympathies   fastened   on    palpable   aims   and 


THE   ENGLISH   MIND.  169 

objects,  has  all  the  strength  which  comes  from  ideas 
invigorated  but  narrowed  by  facts.  General  maxims 
disturb  it  not,  for  it  never  acts  from  reason  alone, 
or  passion  alone,  or  understanding  alone ;  but  reason, 
passion,  understanding,  conscience,  religious  sentiment, 
are  all  welded  together  in  its  thoughts  and  actions, 
and  pure  reason,  or  pure  conscience,  or  pure  passion, 
it  not  only  neglects,  but  stigmatizes.  Its  principles 
are  precedents  buttressed  by  prejudices,  and  these  are 
obstinately  asserted  from  force  of  character  rather 
than  reasoned  out  by  force  of  intellect.  "  Taffy," 
said  swearing  Lord  Chancellor  Thurlow  to  Lord 
Kenyon,  "  you  are  obstinate,  and  give  no  reasons ; 
now  Scott  is  obstinate,  too,  but  he    gives    reasons, — 

and  bad  ones  they  are ! " 

Indeed,  the  English  mind  believes  what  it  practises, 
and  practises  what  it  believes,  and  is  rarely  weakened 
in  its  active  power  by  perceiving  a  law  of  morality 
or  intelligence  higher  than  its  own  practical  morality 
and  intelligence.  It  meets  all  emergencies  with  expe- 
dients, and  gives  to  its  reasons  the  emphasis  of  its 
will.  Bringing  everything  to  the  test  of  common 
sense  and  fact,  it  is  blind  to  the  operation  cf  the 
great  laws  of  rectitude  and  retribution  objective  to 
itself,  but  trusts  that  the  same  practical  sagacity  and 
practical  energy  which  have  heretofore  met  real  dan- 
8 


170  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

gers,  will  meet  impending  dangers  when  they  become 
real.  It  has  no  forecasting  science  of  right,  but 
when  self-preservation  depends  on  its  doing  right,  the 
most  abstract  req(uirements  of  justice  will  be  "  done 
into  English''  in  as  coarse  and  as  sensible  a  way  as 
its  old  hack-writers  translated  Juvenal  and  Plutarch. 
Tn  the  mean  time  it  prefers  to  trust 

"  In  the  good  old  plan, 
That  they  should  take  who  have  the  power, 
That  they  should  keep  who  can." 

Indeed,  such  a  complete  localization  of  thought, 
morality,  and  religion  was  never  before  witnessed 
in  a  civilized  nation.  It  is  content  with  the  rela- 
tive and  the  realized  in  manners,  laws,  institutions, 
literature,  and  religion  ;  and  it  disowns  the  jurisdic- 
tion, and  sulkily  disregards  the  judgments,  of  absolute 
truth  and  morality.  If  its  imperious  and  all-grasping 
tyranny  provokes  a  province  into  just  rebellion,  na- 
tional statesmen  send  national  warriors  to  put  it 
down,  and  prayers  are  offered  in  national  churches 
for  the  victory.  The  history  of  its  Indian  empire  — 
an  empire  built  up  by  the  valor  and  crimes  of  Clive, 
and  preserved  by  the  serene  remorseless  ness  of 
Hastings's  contriving  intellect  —  is  as  interesting  as 
the  "  Pirate's  Own  Book,"  and  exhibits  the  triumph 
of  similar*  principles ;    but    whatever  is  done  for   the 


THE  ENGLISH  MIND.  171 

national  aggrandizement  is  not  only  vindicated  but 
baptized;  and  when  Edmund  Burke  made  the  most 
desperate  effort  in  the  history  of  eloquence  to  induce 
the  highest  court  of  the  realm  to  apply  the  Higher 
Law  to  the  enormities  of  Hastings,  he  not  only  failed 
of  success,  but  the  English  mind  condemns  him  now 
for  vituperating  the  character  of  "  an  eminent  servant 
of  the  public."  There  is  no  crime  in  such  matters 
but  to  fail  in  crime.  We  have  heard,  lately,  many 
edifying  and  sonorous  sentences  quoted  from  English 
jurists  about  the  law  of  God  overriding  the  law  of 
man ;  but  it  is  not  remembered  that  when  an  Eng- 
lish jurist  speaks  of  the  law  of  God,  he  really  means 
that  fraction  of  it  which  he  thinks  has  become,  or  is 
becoming,  the  law  of  England.  To  make  a  true 
Englishman  responsible  for  any  maxim  which  is 
essentially  abstract,  inorganic,  wnprecedented,  and  for- 
eign to  the  interior  working  of  the  national  mind,  is 
to  misconceive  both  his  meaning  and  his  nature.  No 
great  English  humorist  —  that  is,  no  man  who  sees 
through  phrases  into  characters  —  has  ever  blundered 
into  such  a  mistake.  The  true  localizing  principle  is 
hinted  by  Goldsmith's  braggart  theologian :  "  When  1 
say  religion,  I  of  course  mean  the  Christian  religion  ; 
and  when  I  say  Christian  religion,  I  would  have  you 
know,  sir,  that  I  mean  the  Church  of  England ! " 


172  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

Now  it  is  evident  that  a  national  mind  thus  proud 
and  practical,  thus  individual  and  insular,  making,  as 
it  does,  the  senses  final,  and  almost  deifying  rank  and 
property,  would  naturally  exhibit  in  its  manners  and 
institutions  a  double  aristocracy  of  blood  and  capital. 
Hence  results  the  most  hateful  of  English  character- 
istics, —  the  disposition,  we  mean,  of  each  order  of 
English  society  to  play  the  sycophant  to  the  class 
above  it,  and  the  tyrant  to  the  class  below  it ;  though, 
from  the  inherent  vigor  and  independence  of  the 
Englishman's  nature,  his  servility  is  often  but  the 
mask  of  his  avarice  or  hatred.  The  best  representa- 
tive of  this  unamiable  combination  of  arrogance  and 
meanness  is  that  full-blown  Briton,  or,  as  Parr  would 
have  called  him,  that  "  ruffian  in  ermine,"  Lord  Chan- 
cellor Thurlow,  who  could  justly  claim  the  rare  dis- 
tinction of  being  the  greatest  bully  and  the  greatest 
parasite  of  his  time.  But  this  peculiarity  is  com- 
monly modified  by  nobler  and  sturdier  qualities,  and 
the  nation  is  especially  felicitous  in  the  coarse  but 
strong  practical  morality  which  is  the  life  of  its  man- 
ners*' The  fundamental  principles  of  social  order  are 
never  brought  into  question  by  the  average  English 
mind,  and  even  its  sensuality  is  honest  and  hearty, 
unsophisticated  by  that  subtile  refinement  of  thinking 
by  which  a  Frenchman  will   blandly  violate    the   ten 


THE   ENGLISH   MIND.  173 

commandments  on  philosophic  principles,  and  with 
hardly  the  disturbance  of  a  single  rule  of  etiquette. 
In  the  domestic  virtues  likewise,  —  in  those  attach- 
ments which  cluster  round  a  family  and  a  home,  — 
the  Englishman  is  pre-eminent.  The  Frenchman  is 
wider  and  more  generous  in  his  generalities,  more  of 
a  universal  philanthropist ;  but  his  joy  is  out  of  doors, 
and  he  would  hardly,  if  he  could  help  it,  dine  at 
home  for  the  salvation  of  mankind.  But  political 
liberty  is  only  for  those  who  have  homes  and  love 
them ;  and  though  the  Englishman's  theories  are  nar- 
row, they  are  facts,  while  the  Frenchman's,  if  more 
expansive,   are  unrealized. 

The  leading  defect  of  English  manners,  however, 
is  consequent  on  their  chief  merit.  Being  the  natural 
expression  of  the  national  mind,  all  the  harshness  as 
well  as  all  the  honesty  of  the  people  is  sincerely  ex- 
pressed in  them;  and  they  press  especially  hard  on 
the  poor  and  the  helpless.  In  the  mode  of  conduct- 
ing political  disputes,  in  the  ferocity  and  coarseness 
of  political  and  personal  libels,  and  in  the  habit  of 
calling  unpleasant  objects  by  their  most  unpleasan* 
names,  we  perceive  the  national  contempt  of  all  the 
decent  draperies  which  mental  refinement  casts  ovei 
sensual  tastes  and  aggressive  passions.  The  literatun. 
of  the  nation  strikingly  exhibits  this  ingrained  coarse 


174  THE   ENGLISH   MmD. 

ness  at  the  foundation  of  its  ^mind,  and  its  greatest 
poets  and  novelists  are  full  of  it  in  their  delineations 
of  manners  and  character.  Chaucer  and  Shakespeare 
humorously  represent  it ;  Ben  Jonson  and  •  Fielding, 
the  two  most  exclusively  English  of  all  England's 
imaginative  writers,  are  at  once  its  happy  expounders 
and  bluff  exponents ;  and  Swift,  whose  large  Saxon 
brain  was  rendered  fouler  by  misanthropy,  absolutely 
riots  in  the  gutter.  This  robust  manhood,  anchored 
,  deep  in  strong  sensations  and  rough  passions,  gives 
also  a  peculiar  pugnacity  to  English  manners.  No 
man  can  rise  there  who  cannot  stand  railing,  stand 
invective,  stand  ridicule,  "  stand  fight."  Force  of 
character  bears  remorselessly  down  on  everything  and 
everybody  that  resists  it,  and  no  man  is  safe  who 
cannot  emphasize  the  "  me."  This  harshness  is  a  sign 
of  lusty  health  and  vigor,  and  doubtless  educates  men 
by  opposition  into  self-reliance  ;  but  woe  unto  those 
it  crushes!  Thus  a  friend  of  ours  once  strayed,  in 
the  early  part  of  the  present  century,  into  the  Court 
of  King's  Bench,  where  Lord  Ellenborough  then  sat 
in  all  the  insolence  of  office,  and  where  Mr.  Garrow, 
the  great  cross-examining  advocate,  then  wantoned  in 
all  the  arrogance  of  witness-badgering.  The  first  ob- 
ject that  arrested  his  attention  was  a  middle-aged 
woman,  whose  plump  red  face  and  full  form  displayed 


THE   ENGLISH   MIND.  175 

no  natural  tendency  to  disorders  of  the  nerves,  but 
who  was  now  very  palpably  in  a  violent  fit  of  hys- 
terics. Shocked  at  this  exhibition,  he  asked  a  by- 
stander the  cause  of  her  extraordinary  emotion. 
"0,"  was  the  indifferent  reply,  "she  is  a  witness 
who  has  just  been  cross-examined  by  Mr.  Garrow." 

As  English  manners  grew  naturally  out  of  English 
character,  so  England's  social  and  political  institutions 
have  grown  naturally  out  of  English  manners,  and  all 
are  hieroglyphics  of  national  qualities.  They  express, 
in  somewhat  grotesque  forms  and  combinations,  the 
thoughts  and  sentiments  of  the  ruling  classes  from  age 
to  age.  Springing  originally  out  of  the  national  heart 
and  brain,  we  may  be  sure  that,  however  absurd  and 
even  inhuman  some  of  them  may  now  appear,  they 
served  a  practical  purpose,  and  met  a  national  want, 
at  the  period  of  their  establishment ;  and  though  the 
forms  in  which  the  national  life  is  embodied  are  clung 
to  with  a  prejudice  which  sometimes  boils  into  fanat- 
ical fury,  and  though  the  dead  body  of  an  institution 
is  often  fondly  retained  long  after  its  spirit  is  de- 
parted, this  sullen  conservative  bigotry  gives  stability 
and  working  power  to  the  government  amidst  the  i 
wildest  storms  of  faction,  and  its  evils  are  moderated 
by  a  kind  of  reluctant  reason  and  justice,  which  in 
the  long  run  gets  the  mastery.     Thus  the  constitution 


176  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

of  the  House  of  Commons,  before  the  Reform  Bill  of 
1832,  was  not  fitted  to  the  altered  circumstances  of 
the  nation,  and  the  reformers  really  adhered  to  the 
principle  of  English  popular  representation  in  their 
almost  revolutionary  changes  in  its  forms ;  but  it 
would  be  a  great  error  to  suppose  that  in  the 
unreformed  House  of  Commons  legislation  did  not 
regard  the  interest  of  unrepresented  constituencies,  be- 
cause it  abstractly  had  the  power  to  disregard  them. 
Such  an  impolitic  exercise  of  political  monopoly 
would  have  reformed  the  representation  a  hundred 
years  ago.  So  was  it,  less  than  half  a  century  ago, 
with  the  horrible  severity  of  the  criminal  law,  which 
made  small  thefts  capital  crimes,  punishable  with 
death.  Conservatives  like  Eldon  and  Ellenborough 
opposed  their  repeal  as  vehemently  as  if  the  national 
safety  depended  on  their  remaining  as  scarecrows  on 
the  statute  books,  though  as  judges  they  would  no 
more  have  executed  them  than  they  would  have 
committed  murder.  It  is  understood  in  England  that 
when  the  national  mind  outgrows  a  law,  "  its  inactiv- 
ity," in  Plunket's  phrase,  "is  its  only  excuse  for  ex- 
istence," though  to  propose  its  repeal  is  to  incur  the 
imputation  of  Jacobinism.  "  The  wisdom  of  our  an- 
cestors," is  the  Englishman's  reverent  phrase  as  he 
contemplates   these   gems  from   the   antique ;   but   we 


THE    ENGLISH    MIND.  177 

should  do  injustice  both  to  his  humanity  and  his 
shrewdness,  did  we  reason  deductively  from  them  to 
results,  as  though  they  were  still  living  institutions 
issuing  now  in  ghastly  facts.  He  keeps  the  withered 
and  ugly  symbols  of  his  old  bigotries  for  ornament, 
not  for  use ! 

Indeed,  this  unreasoning  devotion  to  organic  forms, 
even  after  they  have  lost  all  organic  life,  is  ever 
accompanied  by  a  sagacity  which  swiftly  accommo- 
dates itself  to  emergencies;  and  the  sense  of  the 
people  never  shines  so  resplendently  as  in  avoiding 
the  full  logical  consequences  of  its  nonsense,  —  which 
nonsense  we  shall  find  had  commonly  its  origin  in 
sense.  Thus  the  abject  theory  of  the  Divine  Right 
of  Kings  was  a  politic  and  convenient  fiction,  in  the 
early  days  of  the  English  Reformation,  to  operate 
against  the  Jesuit  theory  of  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people,  by  which  the  Papists  hoped  to  re-establish 
Romanism  ;  but  when  Protestant  kings  carried  the 
theory  out  into  practice,  the  genius  of  the  people  as 
easily  extemporized  a  divine  right  of  regicide  and 
revolution.  But  w^hile  the  original  theory  was  politic, 
either  as  a  weapon  against  Romanism  or  faction,  it 
is  curious  to  observe  how  eagerly  it  was  inculcated 
by  the  national  Church  as  a  part  of  religion.  South, 
speaking  of  deadly  sins,  refers  to  "blaspheming  God, 
8*  h 


178  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

disobeying  the  King,  and  the  like" ;  and  even  the 
heavenly-minded  Taylor  asserts,  in  perhaps  the  great- 
est of  his  sermons,  "  that  perfect  submission  to  kings 
is  the  glory  of  the  Protestant  cause  " ;  and  this  per- 
fect submission,  not  to  the  constitution  and  the  laws, 
but  to  the  king,  he  proceeds,  with  superb  sophistries, 
to  invest  with  the  dignity  of  one  of  those  Christian 
works  which  are  the  signs  of  Christian  faith.  But 
the  moment  that  James  the  Second  laid  a  rough  hand 
on  the  established  safeguards  of  the  property,  lives, 
and  religion  of  the  nation,  the  whole  people  fell  away 
from  him;  the  Tory  who  preached  submission  as  a 
duty,  and  the  Whig  who  claimed  rebellion  as  a  right, 
were  both  instantly  united  in  a  defence  of  their  com- 
mon English  heritage ;  and  a  tempest  of  opposition 
arose  whose  breath  blew  the  monarch  from  his 
throne. 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  the  con- 
crete and  national  character  of  English  freedom, 
which,  having  its  foundations  deep  in  the  manners  of 
the  people,  and  having  organized  its  ideas  in  pro- 
tecting institutions,  has  withstood  all  assaults  because 
it  has  ever  been  intrenched  in  facts.  The  national 
genius  embodies,  incarnates,  realizes  all  its  sentiments 
and  thoughts.  Establishing  rights  by  the  hard  pro- 
cess of  growth  and  development,  it  holds  them  with  a 


THE   ENGLISH   MIND.  17 P' 

giant's  grasp.  Seeing  in  them  the  grotesque  reflec- 
tion of  its  own  anomalous  nature,  it  loves  them  with 
the  rude  tenderness  of  a  lion(5ss  for  her  whelps.  It 
cares  little  for  abstract  liberty,  but  it  will  defend 
its  liberties  to  the  death.  It  cares  little  for  the 
Rights  of  Man,  but  for  the  rights  of  English  man  it 
will  fight  "  till  from  its  bones  the  flesh  be  hacked." 
It  cares  little  for  grand  generalities  about  liberty, 
equality,  and  fraternity ;  but,  swearing  lusty  oaths,  and 
speaking  from  the  level  of  character,  it  bluntly  in- 
forms rulers  that,  loving  property,  it  will  pay  no 
taxes  which  it  does  not  itself  impose,  and  that,  being 
proud,  it  will  stand  no  invasion  of  its  inherited  prop- 
erty of  political  privileges.  It  will  allow  the  gov- 
ernment to  exercise  almost  tyrannical  power  provided 
it  violates  no  established  forms  of  that  Liberty, 
"whose  limbs  were  made  in  England."  Its  attach- 
ment to  the  externals  of  its  darling  rights  has  a 
gruff  pugnacity  and  mastiff-like  grip,  which  some- 
times exhibit  the  obstinate  strength  of  stupidity  itself, 
—  a  quality  which  Sheridan  happily  hit  off  when  he 
obJ3cted  in  Parliament  to  a  tax  on  mile-stones,  be- 
cause, he  said,  "  they  were  a  race  who  could  not 
meet  to  remonstrate."  So  strong  is  its  realizing  fac- 
ulty, so  intensely  does  it  live  in  the  concrete,  that  it 
forces    svery    national    thought    into    an    institution. 


180  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

Thus  it  found  rough  rebellious  qualities  seated  deep 
in  its  arrogant  nature,  and  demanding  expression. 
These  first  found  vent  in  bloody  collisions  with  its 
rulers,  but  eventually  battled  themselves  into  laws  by 
which  resistance  was  legalized ;  and  thus  the  homely 
but  vigorous  imagination  of  the  English  Mind,  or- 
ganizing by  instinct,  at  last  succeeded  in  tlie  stu- 
pendous effort  of  consummating  the  wedlock  of  liberty 
and  order  by  organizing  even  insurrection,  and  forcing 
anarchy  itself  to  wear  the  fetters  of  form.  This,  we 
need  not  say,  is  the  greatest  achievement  in  the  art 
of  politics  that  the  world  has  ever  seen ;  and  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States  are  the  only  nations 
which  have  yet  been  able  to  perform  it.  Any  child 
can  prattle  prettily  about  human  rights  and  resistance 
to  tyrants ;  but  to  tame  the  wild  war-horses  of  radical 
jftissions,  and  compel  their  hot  energies  to  subserve 
the  purposes  of  reason,  is  the  work  of  a  full-grown 
and  experienced  man. 

We  now  come  to  a  most  delicate  topic,  which  can 
hardly  be  touched  without  offence,  or  avoided  with- 
out an  oversight  of  the  most  grotesque  expression  of 
the  English  Mind.  The  determining  sentiments  of  the 
people  are  to  war,  industry,  and  general  individual  and 
material  aggrandizement,  —  to  things  human  rather 
than   to   things   divine ;   but   every    true   Englishman, 


THE   ENGLISH   MIND.  181 

nowever  much  of  a  practical  Atheist  he  may  be,  feels 
a  genuine  horror  of  infidelity,  and  always  has  a  religion 
to  swear  by,  and,  if  need  be,  to  fight  for.  He  makes 
it  —  we  are  speaking  of  the  worldling  —  subordinate  to 
English  laws  and  customs,  Anglicizes  it,  and  never 
allows  it  to  interfere  with  his  selfish  or  patriotic  ser- 
vice to  his  country,  or  with  the  gratification  of  his 
passions ;  but  he  still  believes  it,  and,  what  is  more, 
believes  that  he  himself  is  one  of  its  edifying  expo- 
nents. This  gives  a  delicious  unconscious  hypocrisy 
to  the  average  national  mind,  which  has  long  been 
the  delight  and  the  butt  of  English  humorists.  Its 
most  startling  representative  was  the  old  swearing, 
drinking,  licentious,  church-and-king  Cavalier,  who  was 
little  disposed,  the  historian  tells  us,  to  shape  his  life 
according  to  the  precepts  of  the  Church,  but  who 
was  always  "ready  to  fight  knee-deep  in  blood  fior 
her  cathedrals  and  palaces,  for  every  line  of  her  ru- 
bric, and  every  thread  of  her  vestments."  Two  cen- 
turies ago,  Mrs.  Aphra  Behn  described  the  English 
squire  as  "  going  to  church  every  Sunday  morning, 
to  set  a  good  example  to  the  lower  orders,  and  as 
getting  the  parson  drunk  every  Sunday  night  to  show 
his  respect  for  the  Church."  Goldsmith,  in  that  ex- 
quisite sketch  wherein  he  records  the  comments  made 
by    representative    men    of    various    classes    on    thcj 


182  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

probable  effects  of  a  political  measure,  makes  hia 
soldier  rip  out  a  tremendous  oath  as  a  pious  prelim- 
inary to  the  expression  of  his  fear  that  the  meas- 
ure in  question  will  ruin  the  Church.  The  cry, 
raised  generally  by  cunning  politicians,  that  "  the 
Church  is  in  danger,"  is  sure  to  stir  all  the  ferocity, 
stupidity,  and  ruffianism  of  the  nation  in  its  support. 
Religion  in  England  is,  in  fact,  a  part  of  politics,  and 
therefore  the  most  worldly  wear  its  badges.  Thus  all 
English  warriors,  statesmen,  and  judges  are  religious 
men,  but  the  religion  is  ever  subordinate  to  the 
profession  or  business  in  hand.  "  Mr.  Whitefield," 
said  Lord  George  Sackville,  condescendingly,  "you 
may  preach  to  my  soldiers,  provided  you  say  nothing 
against  the  articles  of  war."  Mr.  Prime  Minister 
Pitt  spends  six  days  of  the  week  in  conducting  a 
bloody  war  to  defend  the  political,  and  especially  the 
religious  institutions  of  England  against  the  diabolical 
designs  of  French  Atheists  and  Jacobins,  and  on 
Sunday  morning  fights  a  duel  on  Wimbledon  Com- 
inon.  Sometimes  the  forms  of  religion  are  conde- 
scendingly patronized  because  they  are  accredited 
marks  of  respectability.  Percival  Stockdale  tells  us 
that  he  was  appointed  chaplain  to  a  man-of-war,  sta- 
tioned at  Plymouth,  but  found  it  difficult  to  exercise 
his  functions.     He  at  last  directly  requested  the  cap- 


THE   ENGLISH   MIND.  183 

tain  lo  allow  him  to  read  prayers.  "Well,"  said 
the  officer,  "you  had  better,  Mr.  Stockdale,  begin 
next  Sunday,  as  I  suppose  this  thing  must  be  done 
as  long  as  Christianity  is  dboutr  But  perhaps  the 
quaintest  example  of  this  combination  of  business 
and  theology  is  found  in  that  English  judge,  who 
was  condemning  to  death,  under  the  old  barbarous 
law,  a  person  who  had  forged  a  one-pound  note. 
Lord  Campbell  tells  us  that,  after  exhorting  the 
criminal  to  prepare  for  another  world,  he  added: 
"And  I  trust  that,  through  the  mediation  and  merits 
of  our  blessed  Redeemer,  you  may  there  experience 
that  mercy  which  a  due  regard  to  the  credit  of  the 
paper  currency  of  the  country  forbids  you  to  hope 
for  hereP  Indeed,  nothing  could  more  forcibly  de- 
monstrate how  complete  is  the  organization  of  the 
English  Mind  than  this  interpenetration  of  the  form 
of  the  religious  element  with  its  most  earthly  aims ; 
and  therefore  it  is  that  the  real  piety  of  the  nation, 
whether  ritual  or  evangelical,  is  so  sturdy  and  active, 
and  passes  so  readily  from  Christian  doctrines  into 
Christian  virtues.  In  its  best  expressions  it  is  some-, 
what  local ;  but  what  it  loses  in  transcendent  breadth 
and  elevation  of  sentiment  it  gains  in  practical  fac- 
ulty to  perform  every-day  duties. 

We  must  have  performed  this  analysis  of  the  level 


184  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

English  Mind  with  a  shameful  obtusenesiB^  if  we  have 
not  all  along  indicated  and  implied  its  capacity  to 
produce  and  nurture  great  and  strong  men  of  action 
and  men  of  thought.  It  has,  in  truth,  been  singu 
larly  fertile  in  forcible  individuals,  whose  cbaracten 
have  the  compound  raciness  of  national  and  persona* 
peculiarity,  and  relish  of  the  soil  whence  they  sprung. 
Few  of  these,  however  cosmopolitan  may  have  been 
their  manners,  or  comprehensive  their  reason,  have 
escaped  the  grasp  of  that  gravitation  by  w^hich  the 
great  mother  mind  holds  to  her  knee  her  most  ca- 
pricious and  her  most  colossal  children.  Let  us  look 
at  this  brood  of  giants  in  an  ascending  scale  of  in- 
tellectual precedence,  fastening  first  on  those  who  are 
nearest  the  common  heart  and  represent  most  exclu- 
sively the  character  of  the  nation's  general  mind. 
Foremost  among  these  is  Sir  Edward  Coke,  the 
leviathan  of  the  common  law,  and  the  sublime  of 
common  sense,  —  a  man  who  could  have  been  pro- 
duced only  by  the  slow  gestation  of  centuries,  Eng- 
lish in  bone  and  blood  and  brain.  Stout  as  an  oak, 
though  capable  of  being  yielding  as  a  willow ;  with 
an  intellect  tough,  fibrous,  holding  with  a  Titanic 
clutch  its  enormity  of  acquisition ;  with  a  disposition 
hard,  arrogant,  obstinate,  just;  and  with  a  heart  ava- 
ricious of  wealth  and   power,  scorning   all    weak   and 


THE   ENGLISH    MIND.  185 

most  amiable  emotions,  but  clinging,  in  spite  of  its 
selfish  fits  and  starts  of  servility,  to  English  laws, 
customs,  and  liberties,  with  the  tenacity  of  mingled 
instinct  and  passion  ;  the  man  looms  up  before  us, 
rude,  ungenerous,  and  revengeful,  as  when  he  insulted 
Bacon  in  his  abasement,  and  roared  out  "  spider  of 
hell"  to  Raleigh  in  his  unjust  impeachment,  yet 
rarely  losing  that  stiff,  daring  spirit  which  drafted  the 
immortal  "  Petition  of  Right,*'  and  that  sour  and  sul- 
len honesty  which  told  the  messenger  of  James  I., 
who  came  to  command  him  to  prejudge  a  case  in 
which  the  king's  prerogative  was  concerned,  "  w^hen 
the  case  happens,  I  shall  do  that  which  will  be  fit 
for  a  judge  to  do.'*  Less  hard,  Equally  brave,  and 
more  genial,  Chief  Justice  Holt  stands  before,  us, 
with  his  English  force  of  understanding,  sagacity  of 
insight,  fidelity  to  facts,  and  fear  of  nothing  but  — 
the  tongue  of  Lady  Holt ;  wise,  and  with  a  slight 
conceit  of  his  wisdom ;  a  man  who  has  no  doubts 
that  laws  should  be  executed  and  that  rogues  should 
be  hanged,  and  before  the  shrewd  glance  of  whose 
knowing  eye  sophism  instantly  dwindles,  and  all  the 
bubbles  of  fanaticism  incontinently  collapse.  Thus  he 
once  committed  a  blasphemous  impostor  by  the  name 
of  Atkins,  who  belonged  to  a  sect,  half  cheats,  half 
gulls,  called  "  The    Prophets "     One   of  the    brother- 


186  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

hood  immediately  waited  on  him  and  said  autliorita 
lively,  "I  come  to  you,  a  prophet  from  the  Lord 
God,  who  has  sent  me  to  thee,  and  would  have  thee 
grant  a  nolle  prosequi  to  John  Atkins,  his  servant, 
whom  thou  hast  sent  to  prison."  Such  a  demand 
might  have  puzzled  some  judges,  but  Holt's  grim 
humor  and  English  sagacity  darted  at  once  to  the 
point  which  betrayed  the  falsity  of  the  fanatic's  claim. 
"Thou  art  a  false  prophet  and  lying  knave,"  he 
answered.  "  If  the  Lord  God  had  sent  thee,  it  would 
have  been  to  the  Attorney- General,  for  He  knows 
that  it  belongeth  not  to  the  Chief  Justice  to  grant  a 
nolle  prosequi.  But  I,  as  Chief  Justice,  can  grant 
you  a  warrant  to*  bear  him  company,"  —  which,  it  is 
unnecessary  to  add,  he  immediately  did.  The  mas- 
culine spirit  of  Coke  and  Holt  is  visible  in  all  the 
great  English  lawyers  and  magistrates,  refined  into  a 
-  graceful  firmness  in  Hardwicke,  caricatured  in  the 
bluff,  huffing,  swearing  imperiousness  of  Thurlow,  and 
finding  in  Eldon,  who  combined  Thurlow's  bigotry 
with  Hardwicke's  courtesy,  its  latest  representative. 

In  respect  to  the  statesmen  of  England,  we  will 
pass  over  many  small,  sharp,  snapping  minds,  emi- 
nent as  red-tape  officials  and  ministers  of  routine,  2.nd 
many  commanding  intellects  and  men  versed  in  af- 
fairs, In  order  that  we  may  the   more  emphasize  the 


THE   ENGLISH   MIND.  187 

name  of  Chatham,  who,  though  it  was  said  of  him 
that  he  knew  nothing  perfectly  but  Barrow's  Sermons 
and  Spenser's  Faerie  Queene,  is  pre-eminent  among 
English  statesmen  for  the  union  of  the  intensest  na- 
tionality with  the  most  thoroughgoing  force  of  imagi- 
nation and  grandest  elevation  of  sentiment.  Feeling 
the  glory  and  the  might  of  his  country  throbbing  in 
every  pulsation  of  his  heroic  heart,  he  was  himself 
the  nation  individualized,  could  wield  all  its  resources 
rf  spirit  and  power,  and,  while  in  office,  penetrated, 
animated,  kindled,  the  whole  people  with  his  own  fiery 
and  invincible  soul.  As  a  statesman,  he  neither  had 
comprehension  of  understanding  nor  the  timidity  in 
action  which  often  accompanies  it ;  but,  a  hero  and 
a  man  of  genius,  he  was  fertile  in  great  conceptions, 
destitute  of  all  moral  fear,  on  fire  with  patriotic  en- 
thusiasm. Possessinor  a  clear  and  bright  vision  of 
some  distant  and  fascinating,  but  seemingly  inaccessi- 
ble object,  and  bearing  down  all  opposition  with  a 
will  as  full  of  the  heat  of  his  genius  as  his  concep- 
tion was  with  its  light,  he  went  crashing  through  all 
intervening  obstacles  right  to  his  mark,  and  then 
proudly  pointed  to  his  success  in  justification  of  his 
processes.  In  a  lower  sphere  of  action,  and  with  a 
patriotism  less  ideal,  but  still  glorious  with  the  beau- 
tiful audacity  and  vivid  vision  of  genius,  is  that  most 


188  THE  ENGLISH  MIND. 

heroic  of  English  naval  commanders,  Nelson.  Bear 
ing  ill  his  brain  an  original  plan  of  attack,  and 
flashing  his  own  soul  into  the  roughest  sailor  at  the 
guns,  fleet  after  fleet  sunk  or  dispersed  as  they  came 
into  collision  with  that  indomitable  valor  guided  by 
that  swift,  sure,  far-darting  mind.  His  heroism,  how- 
ever, was  pervaded  through  and  through  with  the 
vulgarest  prejudices  of  the  common  English  seaman* 
His  three  orders  to  his  men  when  he  took  the  com 
mand  on  the  opening  of  the  French  war  sound  like 
the  voice  of  England  herself;  first,  "to  obey  orders 
implicitly ;  second,  to  consider  every  man  their  enemy 
who  spoke  ill  of  the  King;  and,  third,  to  hate  a 
Frenchman  as  they  did  the  Devil." 

In  ascending  from  men  eminent  in  action  to  men 
renowned  in  thought,  we  are  almost  overwhelmed  by 
the  thick  throng  of  names,  illustrious  in  scientific 
discovery  and  literary  creation,  which  crowd  upon 
the  attention.  Leaving  out  of  view  the  mass  of 
originating  genius  which  has  been  drawn  into  the 
service  of  the  nation's  applying  talent,  in  the  vast 
field  of  its  industrial  labors,  what  a  proof  of  the 
richness,  depth,  strength,  variety,  and  unity  of  the 
English  Mind  is  revealed  in  its  literature  alone. 
This  bears  the  impress  of  the  same  nationality  which 
characterizes    its    manners     and    institutions,    but    a 


THE  ENGLISH  MIND.  189 

nationality  more  or  less  refined,  ennobled,  and  ex- 
alted. If  we  observe  the  long  line  of  its  poets, 
Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Ben  Jonson,  Dryden,  Pope, 
Byron,  with  hardly  the  exceptions  of  Spenser,  Mil- 
ton, and  Wordsworth,  we  shall  find  that,  however 
exalted,  divinized,  some  of  them  may  be  in  imagina- 
tion and  sentiment,  and  however  palpable  may  be 
the  elements  of  thought  they  have  assimilated  directly 
from  visible  nature  or  other  literatures,  they  still  all 
rest  on  the  solid  base  of  English  character,  all  par- 
take of  the  tough  English  force, 

*'  And  of  that  fibre,  quick  and  strong, 
Whose  throbs  are  love,  whose  thrills  are  song." 

Though  they  shoot  up  from  the  level  English  mind 
to  almost  starry  heights,  their  feet  are  always  firm 
on  English  ground.  Their  ideal  elevation  is  ever 
significant  of  the  tremendous  breadth  and  vigor  of 
their  actual  characters.  Mountain  peaks  that  cleave 
the  air  of  another  world,  with  heaven's  most  purple 
glories  playing  on  their  summits,  their  broad  founda- 
tions are  still  immovably  fixed  on  the  earth.  It  is, 
as  the  poet  says  of  the  Alps,  "  Earth  climbing  to 
heaven."  This  reality  of  manhood  gives  body  and 
human  interest  to  their  loftiest  ecstasies  of  creative 
passion,  for  the  superlative  is  ever  vitalized  by  the 
positive   force  which   urges  it  up,  and   never   mimics 


190  THE   ENGLISH   MIND. 

the  crazy  fancy  of  Oriental  exaggeration.  When  to 
the  impassioned  imagination  of  Shakespeare's  lover 
•  the  eyes  of  his  mistress  became  "  lights  that  do  mis- 
lead the  Morn,"  we  have  a  more  than  Oriental  extrav- 
agance ;  but  in  the  shock  of  sweet  surprise  it  gives 
our  spirits  there  is  no  feeling  of  the  unnatural  or 
the  bizarre. 

Observe,  again,  that  portion  of  English  literature 
which  relates  to  the  truisms  and  the  problems  of 
morality,  philosophy,  and  religion.  Now,  no  didactic 
writing  in  the  world  is  so  parched  and  mechanical  as 
the  English,  as  long  as  it  deals  dryly  with  gener- 
alities ;  but  the  moment  a  gush  of  thought  comes 
charged  with  the  forces  of  character,  truisms  instantly 
I  freshen  into  truths,  and  the  page  is  all  alive  and 
\  inundated  with  meaning.  Dr.  Johnson  is  sometimes, 
with  cruel  irony,  called'* the  great  English  moralist," 
in  which  capacity  he  is  often  the  most  stupendously 
tiresome  of  all  moralizing  word-pilers  ;  but  Dr.  John- 
son, the  high-churchman  and  Jacobite,  pouring  out  his 
mingled  tide  of  reflection  and  prejudice,  hating  Whig.^, 
snarling  at  Milton,  and  saying  "  You  lie,  sir,"  to  an 
opponent,  is  as  racy  as  Montaigne  or  Swift.  Ascend- 
ing higher  into  the  region  of  English  philosophy,  we 
shall  find  that  the  peculiarity  of  the  great  English 
thinker  fs,  that  he  grapples  a  subject,  not  with   hia 


THE  ENGLISH  MIND.  191 

understanding  alone,  but  with  his  whole  nature,  ex- 
tends the  empire  of  the  concrete  into  the  region  of 
pure  speculation,  and,  unlike  the  German  and  French- 
man, builds  not  on  abstractions,  but  on  conceptions 
which  are  o'erinformed  with  his  individual  life  and 
experience.  Hobbes  and  Locke,  in  their  metaphysics, 
draw  their  own  portraits  as  unmistakably  as  Milton 
and  Wordsworth  do  theirs  in  their  poetry.  This  pecu- 
liarity tends  to  make  all  English  thought  relative,  but 
what  it  loses  in  universality  it  more  than  gains  in 
energy,  in  closeness  to  things,  and  in  power  to  kin- 
dle thought  in  all  minds  brought  within  its  influence. 
The  exception  to  this  statement,  as  far  as  regards 
universality,  is  found  in  that  puzzle  of  critical  science^ 
"Nature's  darling"  and  marvel,  Shakespeare,  who, 
w^hile  he  comprehends  England,  is  not  comprehended 
by  it,  but  stands,  in  some  degree,  not  only  for  Eng- 
lish but  for  modern  thought ;  and  perhaps  Bacon's  ca- 
pacious and  beneficent  intellect,  whether  we  consider 
the  ethical  richness  of  its  tone  or  the  beautiful  com- 
prehensiveness of  its  germinating  maxims,  can  hardly 
be  deemed,  to  use  his  own  insular  image,  "an  island 
cut  off  from  other  men's  lands,  but  rather  a  conti- 
nent that  joins  to  them."  Still,  accepting  generally 
those  limitations  of  English  thought  which  result  from 
its  intense  vitality  and  nationality,  we  are  not  likely 


192  THE   ENGLISH   Mmo. 

to  mourn  much  over  its  relative  narrowness,  if  we 
place  it  by  the  side  of  the  barren  amplitude,  or 
ample  barrenness,  of  abstract  thinking.  Take,  for  ex- 
ample, any  great  logician,  with  his  mastery  of  logi- 
cal processes,  and  compare  him  with  a  really  great 
reasoner  of  the  wide,  conceptive  genius  of  Hooker,  or 
Chillingworth,  or  Barrow,  or  Burke,  with  Ms  mastery 
of  logical  premises,  and,  in  respect  to  mental  enlight- 
enment alone,  do  you  not  suppose  that  the  clean  and 
clear,  but  unproductive  understanding  of  the  passion- 
less dialectician  will  quickly  dwindle  before  the  mas- 
sive nature  of  the  creative  thinker?  The  fabrics  of 
reason,  indeed,  require  not  only  machinery  but  ma- 
terials. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  ready  interchange  of  re- 
flective and  creative  reason  in  the  instinctive  opera- 
tion of  the  English  mind,  its  poets  are  philosophers, 
and  its  philosophers  are  poets.  The  old  English 
drama,  from  its  stout  beginning  in  Marlowe's  "  con 
sistent  mightiness "  and  "  working  words,"  until  it 
melted  in  the  flushed,  wild-eyed  voluptuousness  of 
Fletcher's  fancy,  and  again  hardened  in  the  sensual- 
ized sense  of  Wycherley's  satire  and  the  diamond 
glitter  of  Congreve's  wit,  is  all  aglow  with  the  fire 
and  fierceness  of  impassioned  reason.  Dryden  argues 
in  annihilating  sarcasms  and  radiant  metaphors ;  Pope 


THE  ENGLISH  MIND.  193 

runs  ethics  into  rhythm  and  epigrams.  In  the  relig- 
ious poets  of  the  school  of  Herbert  and  Vaughan, 
a  curious  eye  is  continually  seen  peering  into  the 
dusky  corners  of  insoluble  problems,  and  metaphysic 
niceties  are  vitally  inwrought  with  the  holy  quaint- 
ness  of  their  meditations,  and  the  wild-rose  perfume 
of  their  sentiments  ;  and,  in  the  present  century,  the 
knottiest  problems  of  philosophy  have  come  to  us 
touched  and  irradiated  with  the  ethereal  imaginations 
of  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  and  Coleridge,  or  shot  pas- 
sionately out  from  the  hot  heart  of  Byron. 

But,  reluctantly  leaving  themes  which  might  tempt 
to  wearying  digressions,  we  wish  to  add  a  word  or 
two  respecting  the  mental  characteristics  of  four  men 
who  are  pre-eminently  the  glory  of  the  English  intel- 
lect, —  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Newton ; 
and  if  the  human  mind  contains  more  wondrous  fac- 
ulties than  these  exhibit,  we  know  them  not.  The 
essential  quality  of  Chaucer  is  the  deep,  penetrating, 
Dantean  intensity  of  his  single  conceptions,  which  go 
right  to  the  heart  of  the  objects  conceived,  so  that 
there  is  an  absolute  contact  of  thought  and  thing 
without  any  interval.  These  conceptions,  however, 
he  gives  in  succession,  not  in  combination ;  and  the 
supreme  greatness  of  Shakespeare's  almost  celestial 
strength  is  seen  in  this,  that  while  he  conceives  as 
9  H 


194  THE  ENGLISH  MIND. 

intensely  as  Chaucer,  he  has  the  further  power  of 
combining  diverse  conceptions  into  a  complex  whole, 
"  vital  in  every  part,"  and  of  flashing  the  marvellous 
combination  at  once  upon  the  mind  in  words  that 
are  things.  Milton  does  not  possess  this  poetic  com- 
prehensiveness of  conception  and  combination ;  but 
he  stands  before  us  as  perhaps  the  grandest  and 
mightiest  individual  man  in  literature,  —  a  man  who 
transmuted  all  thoughts,  passions,  acquisitions,  and 
aspirations  into  the  indestructible  substance  of  personal 
character.  Assimilating  and  absorbing  into  his  own 
nature  the  spirit  of  English  Puritanism,  he  starts  from, 
a  firm  and  strong, 'though  somewhat  narrow  base  ;  but, 
like  an  inverted  pyramid,  he  broadens  as  he  ascends, 
and  soars  at  last  into  regions  so  exalted  and  so  holy 
that  his  son^  becomes,  in  his  own  divine  words,  "  the 
majestic  image  of  a  high  and  stately  drama,  shutting 
up  and  interminghng .  her  solemn  scenes  and  acts 
with  a  sevenfold  chorus  of  hallelujahs  and  harping 
symphonies ! "  It  would  not  become  us  here  to 
speak  of  Newton,  —  although,  in  the  exhaustless  cre- 
ativeness  of  his  imagination,  few  poets  have  equalled 
him,  —  except  to  note  the  union  in  his  colossal  char- 
acter of  boundless  inventiveness  with  an  austere  Eng- 
lish constancy  to  the  object  in  view.  His  mind,  when 
on  the  trail  of  discovery,  was  infinitely  fertile  in  the 


THE  ENGLISH   MIND.  195 

most  original  and  ingenious  guesses,  conjectures,  and 
hypotheses,  and  his  life  might  have  been  barren  of 
scientific  results  had  he  yielded  himself  to  their  soft 
fascination;  but  in  that  great,  calm  mind  they  were 
tested  and  discarded  with  the  same  rapid  ease  that 
marked  their  conception;  and  the  persistent  Genius, 
pitched  far  beyond  the  outmost  walls  of  positive 
knowledge, 

"  Went  sounding  on  its  dim  and  perilous  way!  " 
In  these  remarks  on  the  English  Mind,  with  their 
insufiicient  analysis  of  incomplete  examples,  and  the 
result,  it  may  be,  of  a  most  "scattering  and  unsure 
observance,"  we  have  at  least  endeavored  to  follow  it 
as  it  creeps,  and  catch  a  vanishing  view  of  it  as  it 
soars,  without  subjecting  the  facts  of  its  organic  life  to 
any  misleading  rhetorical  exaggeration  or  embellish- 
ment. We  have  attempted  the  description  of  this 
transcendent  star  in  the  constellation  of  nationalities, 
as  we  would  describe  any  of  those  great  products  of 
nature  whose  justification  is  found  in  their  existence. 
Yet  we  are  painfully  aware  how  futile  is  the  effort 
to  sketch  in  a  short  essay  characteristics  which  have 
taken  ten  centuries  of  the  energies  of  a  nation  to 
evolve;  but,  speaking  to  those  who  know  something 
by  descent  and  experience  of  the  virtues  and  the 
vices  of  the  English  blood,  we  may  have  hinted  what 


196  THE  ENGLISH   MIND. 

we  could  not  represent.     For  this  proud   and  practi- 
cal, this  arrogant  and  insular  England, 

"  Whose  shores  beat  back  the  ocean's  foamy  feet," 

is  the  august  mother  of  nations  destined  to  survive 
her ;  has  sown,  by  her  bigotry  and  rapacity,  no  less 
than  her  enterprise,  the  seeds  of  empires  all  over 
the  earth ;  and  from  the  English  Mind  as  its  germ 
has  sprung  our  own  somewhat  heterogeneous  but" 
rapidly  organizing  American  Mind,  worthy,  as  we 
think,  of  its  parentage,  and  intended,  as  we  trust, 
for  a  loftier  and  more  comprehensive  dominion;  dis- 
tinguished, unlike  the  English,  by  a  mental  hospital- 
ity which  eagerly^  receives,  and  a  mental  energy 
which  quickly  assimilates,  the  blended  life-streams  of 
various  nationalities ;  with  a  genius  less  persistent, 
but  more  sensitive  and  flexible  ;  with  a  freedom  less 
local ;  with  ideas  larger  and  more  generous ;  with  a 
past,  it  may  be,  less  rich  in  memories,  but  with  a 
future  more  glorious  in  hopes. 


vn. 

THACKERAY. 

THE  death  of  Thackeray  has  elicited  from  the 
press  both  of  England  and  the  United  States  a 
series  of  warm  testimonials  to  the  genius  of  the 
writer  and  the  character  of  the  man.  The  majority 
of  them  bear  the  marks  of  proceeding  from  personal 
friends  or  acquaintances,  and  the  majority  of  them 
resent  with  special  heat  the  imputation  that  the  ob- 
ject of  their  eulogy  was,  in  any  respect,  a  cynic.  A 
shrewd  suspicion  arises  that  such  agreement  in  select- 
ing the  topic  of  defence  indicates  an  uneasy  conscious- 
ness of  a  similai*  agreement,  in  the  reading  public, 
as  to  the  justice  of  the  charge.  If  this  were  so,  we 
should  think  the  question  was  settled  against  the 
eulogists.  As  the  inmost  individuality  of  a  man  of 
genius  inevitably  escapes  in  his  writings,  and  as  the 
multitude  of  readers  judge  of  him  by  the  general 
impression  his  works  have  left  on  their  minds,  their 
intelligent  verdict  in  regard  to  his  real  disposition 
and  nature  carries  with  it  more   authority  than   the 


198  THACKEEAY. 

testimony  of  his  chance  companions.  Acres  of  evi- 
dence concerning  the  correct  life  and  benevolent 
feelings  of  Smollett  and  Wieland  can  blind  no  dis- 
cerning  eye  to  the  palpable  fact  that  sensuality  and 
^  mi^nthropy^' entered  largely  into  the  composition  of 
the  author  of  "Roderick  Eandom,"  and  that  a  profound 
disbelief  in  what  commonly  goes  under  the  name  of 
virtue,  and  a  delight  in  toying  with  voluptuous  images, 
characterized  the  historian  of"Agathon."  The  world 
has  little  to  do  with  the  outward  life  a  man  of  gen- 
ius privately  leads,  in  comparison  with  the  inward 
life  he  universally  diffuses ;  and  an  author  who  con 
trives  to  impress  fair-minded  readers  that  his  mind 
is  tainted  with  cynical  views  of  man  and  society,  can 
hardly  pass  as  a  genial  lover  of  his  race  on  the 
strength  of  certificates  that  he  has  performed  indi- 
vidual acts  of  kindness  and  good-will.  The  question 
relates  to  the  kind  of  influence  he  exercises  on  those 
he  has  never  seen  or  known.  What  this  influence 
is,  in  the  case  of  Thackeray,  we  by  no  means  think 
is  expressed  in  so  blunt  and  rough  a  term  as  "cyn- 
ical," and  those  who  use  it  must  be  aware  that  it 
but  coarsely  conveys  the  notion  they  have  of  the 
individuality  of  the  writer  they  seek  to  characterize. 
But  clear  perceptions  often  exist  in  persons  who 
lack  the  power,  or  shirk   the   labor,  of  giving  exact 


THACKERAY.  199 

definitions ;  and  among  the  readers  of  Thackeray  who 
quietly  take  in  the  subtile  essence  of  his  personality, 
there  is  less  disagreement  in  their  impressions  than 
in  their  statements.  To  give  what  seems  to  us  a  fair"] 
transcript  of  the  general  feeling  respecting  the  writer  \ 
and  the  man  will  be  the  object  of  the  present 
paper. 

And,  first,  to  exclude  him  at  once  from  the  class 
and  company  of  the  great  masters  of  characterization, 
we  must  speak  of  his  obvious  .limitations.  He  is 
reported  to  have  said  of  himself,  that  he  "  had  no 
head  above  his  eyes  *' ;  and  a  man  who  has  no  head 
above  his  eyes  is  not  an  observer  after  the  fashion 
of  Shakespeare,  or  Cervantes,  or  Goethe,  or  Scott,  or 
even  of  Fielding.  The  eye  observes  only  what  the 
mind,  the  heart,  and  the  imagination  are  gifted  to 
see;  and  sight  must  be  reinforced  by  insight  before 
souls  can  be  discerned  as  well  as  manners,  ideas  as 
well  as  objects,  realities  and  relations  as  well  as  ap- 
pearances and  accidental  connections. 

But,  without  taking  an  epigram  of  humorous  self- 
depreciation  as  the  statement  of  a  fact,  it  is  still 
plain  that  Thackeray  was  not  a  philosopher  or  a 
poet,  in  the  sense  in  which  a  great  novelist  or  dram- 
atist possesses  the  qualities  of  either.  He  had  no 
conception  of  causes  and  principles,  no  grasp  of  hu« 


200  THACKERAY. 

man  nature,  as  distinguished  from  the  peculiarities  ot 
!  individuals,  no  perception  of  the  invisible  foundations 
^.  of  visible  things,  no  strictly  creative  power.  The 
world  drifted  before  his  eyes  as  his  stories  drift  to 
their  conclusion ;  and  as  to  the  meaning  or  purpose 
or  law  of  the  phenomenon,  he  neither  knew  nor 
sought  to  know.  This  peculiar  scepticism,  the  result 
not  of  the  exercise,  but  the  absence,  of  philosophical 
thought,  is  characteristic  of  the  "  Bohemian  "  view  of 
life;  and,  among  a  certain  class,  whose  ideal  of  wis- 
dom is  not  so  much  to  know  as  to  be  "  knowing," 
this  ignorant  indifference  to  principles  is  one  of 
Thackeray's  chief  claims  to  distinction.  His  philoso- 
phy is  the  vanity  of  all  things,  and  the  enjoyment 
of  as  many  as  you  can.  His'  superficiality  in  this 
respect  is  evident  the  moment  we  pass  to  some 
dramatist  or  novelist  who  seizes  the  substance  of 
human  nature  and  human  life,  and  represents  things 
in  their  vital  relations,  instead  of  in  the  mechanical 
Juxtaposition  in  which  they  "  happen  "  to  be  observed. 
Shakespeare's  plot,  for  example,  is  a  combination  of 
events;  Thackeray's  story,  a  mere  procession  of  inci- 
dents. Shakespeare  knew  woman  as  well  as  women, 
and  created  Cleopatra  and  Cordelia ;  Thackeray 
sharply  scrutinized  a  certain  number  of  women,  and 
fashioned   Becky  Sharp   and  Amelia.     The   gulf  be- 


THACKERAY.  201 

tween  tne  two  writers,  in  respect  to  naturalness,  to 
a  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  to  individual 
characterizations,  is  as  wide  as  that  which  yawned 
between  Lazarus  and  Dives.  They  never  can  be 
brought  into  the  same  class,  without  a  flippant  and 
heedless  oversight  of  the  distinction  between  kinds 
of  genius,  and  of  their  different  positions  in  the  slid- 
ing-scale  of  minds. 

Connected  with  this  lack  of  high  thought  and  im- 
agination, is|a  lack  of  great  passions,  and  an  absence 
of  sympathy  with  them  in  life.\  They  are  outside  of 
Thackeray's  world.  When  he  touches  on  them,  it  is 
with  a  fleer  of  incredulity:  he  has  a  suspicion  of 
private  theatricals ;  he  is  curious  to  see  the  dressing 
for  the  part ;  he  keeps  a  bright  lookout  to  detect  the 
stage-strut  in  the  hero's  stride,  and  ironically  encores 
the  impassioned  declamation.  In  nothing  does  he 
better  succeed  in  taking  the  romance  from  life,  than 
in  this  oversight  of  the  reality  of  great  passions  in_ 
his  quick  penetration  through  all  the  masks  of  their 
imitators.  [  He  is  so  bent  on  stripping  the  king's 
robes  from  the  limbs  of  the  thief,  that  he  has  lost 
the  sense  of  kingly  natures.  His  world  is,  to  a 
great  extent,  a  world  in  which  the  grand  and  the 
noble  are  "  left  out  in  the  cold,"  and  the  prominence 
given  to  the  mean  and  the  common.  He  takes  the 
9* 


y 


202  THACKERAY. 

real  heart  and  vitality  out  of  mankind,  calls  what 
remains  by  the  name  of  human  nature,  and  adopts 
a  theory  of  life  which  makes  all  history  impossible, 
—  except  the  "  History  of  Pendennis."  An  amusing 
illustration  of  this  defect  is  observable  in  one  of  his 
"  Roundabout  Papers,"  written  during  the  Confederate 
Eebellion.  He  had  travelled  all  over  the  United 
States  with  the  sharpest  eye  that  any  tourist  ever 
brought  with  him  across  the  Atlantic ;  but  he  saw 
nothing  of  the  essential  character  of  the  people,  and 
he  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  imagine,  after  his 
return,  why  we  went  to  war.  While  North  and 
South  were  engaged  in  their  fierce  death-grapple,  he 
had  no  perception  of  the  ideas  at  stake,  or  the  pas- 
sions in  operation.  He  took  a  kindly  view  of  both 
parties  in  the  contest.  "  How  hospitable  they  were, 
those  Southern  men ! "  They  gave  him  excellent 
claret  in  New  Orleans.  "Find  me,"  he  says,  "speak- 
ing ill  of  such  a  country ! "  A  Southern  acquaint- 
ance sent  him  a  case  of  Medoc,  just  as  he  was 
starting  for  a  voyage  up  the  Mississippi.  "  Where 
are  you,"  he  exclaims,  "  honest  friends,  who  gave  me 
of  your  kindness  and  your  cheer?  May  I  be  con- 
siderably boiled,  blown  up,  and  snagged,  if  I  speak 
hard  words  of  you.  May  claret  turn  sour  ere  I  do ! " 
This  may  be  geniality,  but  it  is  the  geniality  of  in- 


THACKERAY.  203 

diflPerence  to  great  things.  A  nation  in  its  death- 
throes,  —  one  side  passionately  battling  for  the  most 
gigantic  of  shams  as  well  as  iniquities,  —  the  land 
flooded  with  blood,  —  and  still  the  good-natured  "de- 
lineator of  human  nature"  utterly  unable  to  account 
for  the  strange  phenomena,  is  only  sure  that  the 
Southerners  cannot  be  so  bad  and  wrong  as  they 
are  represented,  for  did  they  not  giye  him  "that 
excellent  light  claret "  ? 

Another  defect  of  Thackeray,  and  the  consequence 
of  those  we  have  mentioned,  is  the  limitation  of  the 
range  of  his  observation  and  the  comparative  poverty  i 
of  his  materials.  Because  he  confines  himself  to  the 
delineation  of  actual  life,  he  is  sometimes  absurdly 
considered  to  include  it,  when,  in  fact,  he  only  in- 
cludes a  portion,  and  that  a  relatively  small  portion. 
A  man  may  have  a  wide  experience  of  the  world 
without  knowing  experimentally  much  of  Thackeray's 
world;  and  those  whose  knowledge  of  the  world  is 
chiefly  confined  to  what  they  obtain  from  the  novel- 
ists of  manners  and  society,  soon  learn  that  Thack- 
eray's predecessors  and  Thackeray's  contemporaries 
contain  much  which  Thackeray  overlooks.  He  is 
only  one  of  a  large  number  of  observers,  each  with 
a  special  aptitude  for  some  particular  province  of 
actual  life,  each   repairing   certain    deficiencies  of  the 


204  THACKERAY. 

others,  and  all  combined  falling  short  of  the  immense 
variety  of  the  facts.  In  his  own  domain  he  is  a 
master,  but  his  mastery  comes  from  his  keen  and 
original  perception  of  what  has  been  frequently  ob- 
served before,  rather  than  from  his  discovery  of  a 
new  field  of  observation.  After  generalizing  the 
knowledge  of  life  and  the  types  of  character  we  have 
obtained  through  his  writings,  we  find  they  are  not 
so  much  additions  to  our  knowledge  as  verifications 
and  revivals  of  it.  The  form  rather  than  the  sub- 
stance is  what  is  new,  and  the  superficiality  of 
thought  underlying  the  whole  representation  is  often 
painfully  evident. J)  The  maxims  which  may  be  de- 
duced from  the  incidents  and  characters  would  make 
but  an  imperfect  manual  of  practical  wisdom. 

We  now  come,  by  the  method  of  exclusion,  to  the 
positive  qualities  of  Thackeray,  and  to  the  direction 
and  scope  of  his  powers.  Gifted  originally  with  a 
joyous  temperament,  a  vigorous  understanding,  a 
keen  sensibility,  and  a  decided,  though  somewhat  in- 
dolent self-reliance,  he  appears,  before  he  came  before 
the  world  as  a  writer,  to  have  seen  through  most  of 
the  ordinary  forms  of  human  pretension,  and  to  have 
had  a  considerable  experience  of  human  rascality. 
He  lost  a  fortune  in  the  process  of  learning  the 
various   vanities,   follies,   and   artifices    he    afterwards 


THACKERAY.  205 

exposed,  and  thus  may  be  considered  to  have  fairly 
earned  the  right  to  be  their  satirist.  A  man  who 
has  been  deceived  by  a  hypocrite  or  cheated  by  a 
rogue  describes  hypocrites  and  rogues  from  a  sharper 
insight,  and  with  a  keener  scorn,  than  a  man  who 
knows  them  only  from  the  observation  of  their  vic- 
tims. Truisms  brighten  into  truths,  and  hearsays  into 
certainties,  under  the  touch  of  such  an  artist.  As  a 
man's  powers  are  determined  in  their  direction  by  his 
materials,  —  as  what  he  has  seen,  known,  and  assim- 
ilated becomes  a  part  of  his  intellect  and  individual- 
ity, —  Thackeray  obeyed  the  mere  instinct  of  his 
genius  in  becoming  the  delineator  of  manners  and 
the  satirist  of  shams.  The  artificial  —  sometimes  as 
complicated  with  the  natural,  sometimes  as  entirely 
overlaying  it,  sometimes  as  almost  extinguishing  it  — 
was  the  field  where  his  powers  could  obtain  their 
appropriate  exercise.  They  had  indeed  grown  into 
powers  by  the  nutriment  derived  from  it,  and  took 
to  their  game  as  the  duck  takes  to  the  water.  From 
the  worst  consequences  of  this  perilous  mental  direc- 
tion he  was  saved  by  his  tenderness  of  heart,  and 
his  love  and  appreciation  of  simple,  unpretending 
moral  excellence.  He  never  hardened  into  misan- 
thropy or  soured  into  cynicism.  Much  of  his  repre- 
sentation of  life  is  necessarily  ungenial,  for  it  is  the 


206  THACKERAY. 

representation  of  the  selfish,  the  dissolute,  the  hard- 
hearted, and  the  worthless.  Those  who  accuse  hkn 
of  cynicism  for  the  manner  in  which  he  depi9ted 
these  must  expect  a  toleration  after  the  fashion  of. 
the  Regent  Duke  of  Orleans,  "  who  thought,"  says 
Macau  lay,  "  that  he  and  his  fellow-creatures  were 
Yahoos,"  but  then  he  thought  "the  Yahoo  was  a 
very  agreeable  sort  of  animal."  Thackeray's  stand- 
ard of  human  nature  was  not  high,  and  his  peculiar 
talent  lay  in  delineating  specimens  of  it  lower  than 
his  own  standard,  but  the  wholesome  impulses  of  his 
heart  taught  him  when  to  use  the  lash  and  the 
scourge.  The  general  impression  his  individuality 
leaves  on  the  mind  is  not  that  of  a  cynic,  but  of  a 
sceptic.  He  takes  the  world  as  he  finds  it ;  usually 
treats  of  it  in  a  tone  of  good-natured  banter ;  is 
pleased  when  he  can  praise,  and  often  grieved  when 
he  is  compelled  to  censure;  touches  lightly,  but  sure- 
ly, on  follies,  and  only  kindles  into  wrath  at  obdu- 
rate selfishness  or  malignity;  hardly  thinks  the  world 
can  be  bettered;  and  dismisses  it  as  something  whose 
ultimate  purpose  it  is  impossible  to  explain.  He  re- 
cords that  portion  which  passes  under  his  own  mi- 
croscopic vision,  and  leaves  to  others  the  task  of  • 
reconciling  the  facts  with  accredited  theories. 

In   his   earliest   works    the   satirist   is   predommant 


THACKERAY.  207 

over  the  humonst.  He  adopted  the  almost  universal 
policy  of  Englishmen  who  wish  to  attract  public  at- 
tention, —  the  policy  of  assault.  Mr.  Bull  can  only 
be  roused  into  the  admission  of  a  waiter's  ability  by 
feeling  the  smart  of  his  whip  on  his  hide.  Sydney 
Smith,  Macaulay,  Garlyle,  Kingsley,  Ruskin,  Thack- 
eray, having  something  to  say  to  him,  began  with 
shrieking  out  that  he  was  a  fool  and  a  rogue;  and, 
thus  gaining  his  ear,  proceeded  to  state  their  rea- 
sons for  so  injurious  an  opinion,  with  a  plentiful 
mixture  all  the  time  of  opprobrious  epithets  to  pre- 
vent a  relapse  into  insensibility.  This  system  natu- 
rally tends  to  make  authors  exaggerate  things  out 
of  their  relations  m  order  to  give  immediate  effect 
4o  their  special  view,  and  the  habit  of  indiscriminate 
assault  frequently  survives  the  necessity  for  its  exer- 
cise. Thackeray  appears  at  first  to  have  considered 
.  that  his  business  was  to  find  fault ;  to  carry  into  lit- 
erature the  functions  of  the  detective  police ;  to  pry 
into  the  haunts,  and  arrest  the  persons,  of  scoundrels 
who  evaded  the  ordinary  operations  of  the  law.  The 
most  fashionable  clubs  and  drawing-rooms  were  in- 
vaded, to  catch  scamps  whom  a  common  policeman 
would  have  sought  in  low  alleys  and  hells.  The 
successful  exposer  found  a  saturnine  enjoyment  in  the 
confusion   and   scandal  which   his   ingenuity  and  per- 


208  THACKERAY. 

tinacity  wrought  among  "  respectable  "  people,  and  his 
taste  for  the  sport  was  naturally  increased  by  its 
indulgence,  and  his  success  in  its  prosecution.  He 
contracted  a  morbid  liking  for  tainted  character,  and 
his  sharp  glance  and  fine  scent  were  exercised  to 
discover  the  taint  in  characters  generally  sound  and 
healthy!  TBd  latent  weaknesses,  foibles,  follies,  vices, 
of  the  intelligent  and  good  became  the  objects  of  his 
search,  somewhat  to  the  exclusion  of  their  nobler 
and  predominant  qualities,  and  the  result  was,  in 
many  instances,  wofully  partial  estimates  and  exhibi- 
tions of  men  and  women.  The  truth  was  truth  only 
from  the  satirist^s  point  of  view. 

But  all  these  earlier  works  —  "The  Yellowplush 
Correspondence,"  ''The  Confessions  of  Fitz-Boodle," 
"The  Luck  of  Barry  Lyndon,"  "Men's  Wives," 
"  The  Book  of  Snobs,"  not  to  mention  others  —  have 
the  one  merit  of  being  readable,  —  a  merit  which. 
Thackeray  never  lost.  The  fascination  they  exert 
is  in  spite  of  the  commonness  of  their  materials.  The 
charm  comes  from  the  writer,  and  his  mode  of  treat- 
ment. The  wit  and  the  humor,  so  "bitter-sweet"; 
the  fine  fancy  and  delicate  observation ;  the  eye  for 
ludicrous  situations ;  the  richness,  raciness,  and  occa- 
sional wildness  of  the  comic  vein ;  the  subtilty  of 
the  unexpected  strokes   of  pathos ;  the  perfect  obedi- 


THACKERAY.  209 

ence  of  the  style  to  the  mind  it  expresses;  and  the 
continual  presence  of  the  writer  himself,  making  him- 
self the  companion  of  the  reader, — gossiping,  hinting, 
sneering,  laughing,  crying,  as  the  narrative  proceeds, 
—  combine  to  produce  an  effect  which  nobody,  to  say 
the  least,  ever  found  dull.  The  grace,  flexibility,  and 
easy  elegance  of  the  style  are  especially  notable.  It 
is  utterly  without  pretension,  and  partakes  of  the 
absolute  sincerity  of  the  writer;  it  is  talk  in  print, 
seemingly  as  simple  as  the  most  familiar  private  chat, 
yet  as  delicate  in  its  felicities  as  the  most  elaborate 
composition. 

In  "  Vanity  Fair,"  the  first  novel  which  gave  the 
author  wide  celebrity,  we  have  all  the  qualities  we 
have  noticed  cast  into  the  frame  of  a  story,  —  a  story 
which  has  a  more  connected  interest  and  a  more 
elastic  movement  than  its  successors,  though  we  can- 
not think  that  it  equals  some  of  them  in  general 
power  of  thought,  observation,  and  characterization. 
The  moral,  if  moral  it  have,  is  that  the  Amelias  of 
the  world,  with  all  their  simplicity  and  ignorance, 
will,  in  the  long  run,  succeed  better  than  the  Becky 
Sharps,  with  all  their  evil  knowledge  and  selfish 
acuteness.  Amelia  is  evidently  as  much  the  favorite 
of  the  author's  heart  as  Becky  is  of  his  brain,  and 
he  has  expended  nearly  as  much  skill  in  the  delinea- 


210  THACKERAY. 

tion  of  the  one  as  of  the  other.  The  public,  how- 
ever, was  prepared  for  the  first,  but  the  second  took 
it  by  surprise.  It  was  the  most  original  female  char- 
acter of  its  kind  that  had  appeared  in  contemporary 
fiction,  and  the  raciness  and  never-faltering  courage 
with  which  the  character  was  developed,  through  all 
the  phases  of  her  career,  seemed  ian  insult  to  the 
sex.  "  Cynic ! "  cried  the  ladies.  The  truth,  in  this 
case,  was  the  cause  of  offence.  The  Sharps  wisely 
held  their  tongues,  and  left  the  denial  of  the  possi- 
bility of  such  a  woman  to  those  who  had  happily 
never  made  her  acquaintance.  Thackeray  had  evi- 
dently seen  her,  and  seen  also  the  Marquis  of  Stejme. 
The  latter  represents  a  class  of  titled  reprobates  in 
England  and  on  the  Continent,  whom  other  novelists 
have  repeatedly  attempted  to  domesticate  in  the  do- 
main of  romance,  but  have  failed  from  ignorance  or 
exaggeration.  The  peculiarity  of  the  Marquis  is  that 
a  long  life  of  habitual  and  various  vice  has  spread  a 
thick  scurf  over  his  soul,  so  that  he  has  lost  by  de- 
grees all  consciousness  of  the  existence  of  such  an 
organ.  Few  felons  have  gone  to  the  gallows  or  the 
gibbet  with  such  an  oblivion  of  the  immortal  part  of 
them  as  this  noble  Marquis  exhibits  in  going  to  his 
daily  dissoluteness  and  depravity.  The  character  is 
in   some   respects   a  horrible   one,  but  it  is  probably 


THACKERAY.  211 

true.  Shakespeare  makes  Emilia  wish  that  the  "  per- 
nicious soul "  of  lago  "  may  rot  half  a  grain  a  day  " ; 
and  it  would  certainly  seem  that  the  soul  may,  by 
a  course  of  systematic  and  cynical  depravity,  be  com- 
pletely covered  up,  if  it  may  not  be  gradually  con- 
sumed. 

"  The  History  of  Pendennis "  has  more  variety 
of  character,  and  more  minute  analysis  of  feeling, 
than  "  Vanity  Fair,"  but  the  story  drifts  and  drags. 
Though  Mrs.  Pendennis  and  Laura  rank  high  among 
Thackeray's  good  women,  his  genius  is  specially  seen 
in  Blanche  Amory,  a  most  perfect  and  masterly  ex- 
hibition of  the  union  of  selfishness  and  malice  with 
sentimentality,  resulting,  as  it  seems  to  us,  in  a  char- 
acter more  wicked  and  heartless  than  that  of  Becky 
Sharp.  Major  Pendennis  and  she  carry  off  the 
honors  of  the  book,  —  a  book  which,  with  all  its 
wealth  of  wit,  humor,  and  worldly  knowledge,  still 
leaves  the  saddest  impression  on  the  mind  of  all  of 
Thackeray's  works.  It  is  enjoyed  while  we  are  en- 
gaged in  reading  its  many-peopled  pages ;  the  sepa- 
rate scenes  and  incidents  are  full  of  matter ;  but  it 
wants  unity  and  purpose,  and  the  wide  information 
of  the  superficies  of  life  it  conveys  is  of  the  kind 
which  depresses  rather  than  exhilarates.  The  gloss  is 
altogether  taken  both  from  literature  and  society,  and 


212  THACKERAY. 

the  subtile  scepticism  of  the  author's  view  of  life  is 
destructive  of  those  illusions  which  are  beneficent,  as 
well  as  of  those  delusions  which  are  mischievous. 
There  are  certain  habits,  prejudices,  opinions,  and  pre- 
conceptions, which,  though  they  cannot  stand  the  test 
of  relentless  criticism,  are  still  bound  up  with  virtues, 
and  are  at  some  periods  of  life  the  conditions  both 
of  action  and  good  action.  They  should  be  unlearned 
by  experience,  if  unlearned  at  all.  To  begin  life 
with  a  theoretical  disbelief  in  them,  is  to  anticipate 
experience  at  the  cost  often  of  destroying  ambition 
and  weakening  will.  Thackeray  in  this  novel  gives 
a  great  deal  of  that  sort  of  information  which  is  not 
practically  so  good  as  the  ignorance  of  enthusiasm  and 
the  error  of  faith.  We  assent  as  we  read,  and  con- 
gratulate ourselves  on  being  so  much  more  knowing 
than  our  neighbors  ;  but  at  the  end  we  find  that, 
while  our  eyes  have  been  opened,  the  very  sources 
of  volition  have  been  touched  with  paralysis. 

"  The  History  of  Henry  Esmond "  is  an  attempt 
to  look  at  the  age  of  Queen  Anne  through  the  eyes 
of  a  contemporary,  and  to  record  the  result  of  the 
inspection  in  the  style  of  the  period.  It  is,  on  the 
whole,  successful.  The  diction  of  the  book  is  exqui- 
site ;  pleasant  glimpses  are  given  of  the  memorable 
men   of  the    era,  —  literary,  political,    and    military ; 


THACKERAY.  213 

and  the  languid  pace  with  which  the  story  rambles 
to  its  conclusion  provokes  just  that  tranquil  interest 
with  which  Esmond  himself  recalls  in  memory  the 
incidents  of  his-  career.  Both  persons  and  scenes 
have  the  visionary  grace  and  remoteness  which  ob- 
jects take  when  seen  through  the  thin  and  shining 
mist  of  imaginative  recollection.  Beatrix  Esmond, 
the  heroine,  is  another  of  Thackeray's  studies  in 
perverted  feminine  character,  and  is  worthy  of  the 
delineator  of  Becky  and  Blanche.  The  picture  of 
the  old  age  of  this  pernicious  beauty,  given  in  "The 
Virginians,"  is  equally  skilful  and  true.  The  defect 
in  the  plot  of  "  Henry  Esmond "  is  obvious  to  every 
reader.  Lady  Castlewood,  whom  the  author  intends  to 
represent  as  the  ideal  of  a  noble  woman,  loves  the 
lover  of  her  daughterj  and  is  swayed  by  passions 
and  placed  in  situations  degrading  to  womanhood ; 
while  Esmond  himself,  put  forward  as  a  high-toned 
gentleman  and  chivalrous  man  of  honor,  is  so  demor- 
alized by  his  passion  for  a  jilt,  that  he  enters  into  a 
conspiracy  to  overturn  the  government,  and  involve 
England  in  civil  war,  simply  to  please  her,  and  with 
a  profound  disbelief  in  the  cause  for  which  he  is  to 
draw  his  sword.  The  atrocious  villany  of  such  con- 
duct, from  which  a  Marquis  of  Steyne  would  have 
recoiled,  appears  to  Thackeray  simply  the  weakness 
of  a  noble  nature. 


214  THACKERAY. 

"The  Newcomes"  is  perhaps  the  most  genial  of 
the  author's  works,  and  the  one  which  best  exhibits 
the  maturity  and  the  range  of  his  powers.  It  se6ms 
written  with  a  pen  diamond-pointed,  so  glittering  and 
incisive  is  its  slightest  touch.  The  leading  idea  is 
the  necessary  unhappiness  of  marriage  without  mu- 
tual love,  no  matter  what  other  motive,  selfish  or 
•generous,  may  prompt  it;  and  the  worldly  view  of 
the  matter,  as  contrasted  with  the  romantic,  has 
never  been  combated  with  more  unanswerable  force 
than  by  this  realist  and  man  of  the  world.  The 
practical  argument  loses  none  of  its  power  by  be- 
ing given  in  instances,  instead  of  declamations  or 
syllogisms.  \The  sincerity  and  conscientiousness  of 
Thackeray's  mind,  and  the  absence  in  him  of  any 
pretension  to  emotions  he  does  not  feel  and  ideas  he 
does  not  believe,  are  very  marked  in  this  book.|  He 
has  the*  honesty  of  a  clear-sighted  and  clear-headed 
witness  on  the  stand,  stating  facts  as  they  appear  to 
him,  and  on  the  watch  to  escape  being  perjured  by 
yielding  to  the  impulses  either  of  amiability  or  mal- 
ice. In  the  versatile  characterization  of  the  woi'k, 
two  inimitable  personages  stand  out  as  the  best  ex- 
pression of  Thackeray's  heart,  —  Colonel  Newcome 
and  Madame  de  Florae.  Ethel  Newcome  seems  to 
us,  on   the    whole,    an    ambitious   failure,  lacking   the 


THACKERAY.  215 

usual  vitality  of  the  author's  feminine  characters,  and 
wrought  out  with  set  purpose  against  his  grain  to 
show  that  he  could  conceive  and  delineate  "a  young 
lady."  It  is  hard  for  the  reader  to  share  Olive's 
passion  for  her,  for  she  never  arrives  in  the  book  to 
substantial  personality.  She  brings  to  mind  Adam, 
in  the  German  play,  who  is  represented  as  passing 
across  the  stage,  "  going  to  be  created."  Rosey  Mac- 
kenzie has  infinitely  more  life.  Lady  Kew  is  a  good 
female  counterpart  of  the  Marquis  of  Steyne ;  Ma- 
dame d'lvry  is  Blanche  Amory  grown  up ;  Mrs.  Mac- 
kenzie is  petty  malice  and  selfishness  personified ; 
and  all  three  are  masterpieces  in  their  several  kinds. 
Indeed,  the  ingenious  contrivances  of  huir.an  beings 
to  torment  each  other '  were  never  better  sei  forth 
than  in  these  "  Memoirs  of  a  Respectable  Fam^ily." 

We  have  no  space  to  do  even  partial  justice  to 
"  The  Virginians,"  "  Level  the  Widower,"  and  "  The 
Adventures  of  Philip."  Attractive  as  these  are,  they 
furnish  no  specially  novel  illustrations  of  Thackeray's 
powers,  and  exhibit  no  change  in  the  point  of  view 
from  which  he  surveyed  life.  Perhaps  as  ho  gray/ 
older  there  was  a  more  obvious  desire  on  his  jKirt  to 
appear  amiable.  He  celebrates  the  Findly  virtues. 
He  protests  against  being  called  a  cyni*  ;  condescends 
to  interrupt  the   course   of  his  story  V  answer  petu* 


216  THACKERAY. 

lant  criticisms  petulantly ;  and  relaxes  somewhat  from 
his  manly  and  resolute  tone.  The  struggle  between 
his  feelings  and  his  obstinate  intellectual  habit  of 
minutely  inspecting  defects  is  obvious  on  his  page. 
He  likes  good  people,  yet  cannot  help  indulging  in 
a  sly,  mischievous  cut  at  their  faults,  and  then  seems 
vexed  that  he  yields  to  the  teaiptation.  His  humility 
is  often  that  of  a  person  who  tells  his  neighbor  that 
he  is  a  fool  and  then  adds,  "  but  so  are  we  all,  more 
or  less  " ;  the  particular  fool  pointed  out  having  a  dim 
intuition  that  the  rapid  generalization  at  the  end  is 
intended  rather  to  indicate  the  wisdom  of  the  gener- 
alizer  than  his  participation  in  the  universal  folly. 
A  covert  insult  thus  lurks  under  his  ostentatious 
display  of  charity.  And  then  in  his  jets  of  geniality 
there  is  something  suspicious.  He  condescends ;  he 
slaps  on  the  back  ;  he  patronizes  in  praising ;  he  is 
benevolent  from  pity  ;  and,  with  a  light  fleer  or  van- 
ishing touch  of  sar'^^sm,  he  hints  that  it  is  a  superior 
intelligence  that  t.  thus  disporting  in  the  levities  of 
good-fellowship. 

One  thing  remains  to  be  said  regarding  the  collec- 
tive impression  left  on  the  mind  by  Thack foray's  works. 
That  impression,  sharply  scTutiiiized,  \fe  will  venture 
to  say  is  this,  that  life  as  h'j  rep7^^e^lS  it  is  life  not 
worth  the  living.     It  is  douVIf-^s  vd'/  /  tertaining  to 


THACKERAY.  217 

read  about,  and  it  is  not  without  instruction ;  but 
who  would  wish  to  go  through  the  labor  and  vexa- 
tion of  leading  it  ?  Who  would  desire  to  be  any  one 
of  the  characters,  good  or  bad,  depicted  in  it?  Who 
would  consider  its  pleasures  and  rewards  as  any  com- 
pensation for  its  struggles,  disappointments,  and  dis- 
illusions ?  Who,  if  called  upon  to  accept  existence 
under  its  conditions,  would  not,  on  the  whole,  con- 
sider existence  a  bore  or  a  buiden,  rather  than  a 
blessing?  This  can,  we  think,  be  said  of  no  other 
delineator  of  human  life  and  human  character  of  equal 
eminence ;  and  it  points  to  that  pervading  scepticism, 
in  Thackeray's  mind,  which  is  felt  to  be  infused  into 
the  inmost  substance  of  his  works.  (Deficient  in  those 
qualities  and  beliefs  which  convey  irrspiration  as  well 
as  information,  which  impart  heat  to  the  will  as  well 
as  light  to  the  intellect,  —  lacking  the  insight  of 
principles  and  the  experience  of  great  passions  and 
uplifting  sentiments,  —  his  representation  even  of  the 
actual  world  excludes  the  grand  forces  which  really 
animate  and  move  it,  and  thus  ignores  those  deeper 
elements  which  give  to  life  earnestness,  purpose,  and 
glow.  ?" 


10 


vni. 

NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.* 

THE  romance  of  "The  Marble  Faun"  will  be 
widely  welcomed,  not  only  for  its  intrinsic  mer- 
its, but  because  it  is  a  sign  that  its  writer,  after  a 
silence  of  seven  or  eight  years,  has  determined  to 
resume  his  place  in  the  ranks  of  authorship.  In  his 
Preface  he  tells  us,  that  in  each  of  his  previous  publi- 
cations he  had  unconsciously  one  person  in  his  eye, 
whom  he  styles  his  "gentle  reader."  He  meant  it 
"for  that  one  congenial  friend,  more  comprehensive 
of  his  purposes,  more  appreciative  of  his  success, 
more  indulgent  of  his  shortcomings,  and,  in  all  re- 
spects, closer  and  kinder  than  a  brother,  —  that  all- 
sympathizing  critic,  in  short,  whom  an  author  never 
actually  meets,  but  to  whom  he  implicitly  makes  his 
appeal,  whenever  he  is  conscious  of  having  done  his 
best."  He  believes  that  this  reader  did  once  exist 
for  him,  and  duly  received  the  scrolls  he  flung  "  upon 

*  The  Marble  Faun  ;  or  the  Romance  of  Monte  Beni.    By  Na- 
thaniel Hawthorne.    Boston,  1860. 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  219 

whatever  wind  was  blowing,  in  the  faith  that  they 
would  find  him  out."  "But,"  he  questions,  "16  he 
extant  now?  In  these  many  years  since  he  last 
heard  from  me,  may  he  not  have  deemed  his  earthly 
task  accomplished,  and  have  withdrawn  to  the  para- 
dise of  gentle  readers,  wherever  it  may  be,  to  the 
enjoyments  of  which  his  kindly  charity  on  my  behalf 
must  surely  have  entitled  him  ?  "  As,  however,  Haw- 
thorne's reputation  has  been  steadily  growing  with 
the  lapse  of  time,  he  has  no  cause  to  fear  that  the 
longevity  of  his  gentle  reader  will  not  equal  his 
own. 

The  publication  of  this  new  romance  seems  to  offer 
us  a  fitting  occasion  to  attempt  some  description  of 
the  peculiarities  of  the  genius  of  which  it  is  the  lat- 
est offspring,  and  to  hazard  some  judgments  on  its 
predecessors.  It  is  more  than  twenty-five  years  since 
Hawthorne  began  that  remarkable  series  of  stories 
and  essays  which  are  now  collected  in  the  volumes 
of  "  Twice -Told  Tales,"  "  The  Snow  Image  and  other 
Tales,"  and  "  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse."  From  the 
first  he  was  recognized,  by  such  readers  as  he  chanced 
to  find,  as  a  man  of  genius ;  yet  for  a  long  time  he 
enjoyed,  in  his  own  words,  the  distinction  of  being 
"  the  obscurest  man  of  letters  in  America."  His 
readers  were  "gentle"  rather  than  enthusiastic;  their 


220  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

fine  delight  in  his  creations  was  an  individual  per- 
ception of  subtile  excellences  of  thought  and  style, 
too  refined  and  self-satisfying  to  be  contagious ;  and 
the  public  was  untouched,  whilst  the  "  gentle  "  reader 
was  full  of  placid  enjoyment.  Indeed,  we  fear  that 
this  kind  of  reader  is  something  of  an  Epicurean, 
welcoming  a  new  genius  as  a  private  blessing,  sent 
by  a  benign  Providence  to  quicken  a  new  life  in  his 
somewhat  jaded  sense  of  intellectual  pleasure ;  and 
that,  after  having  received  a  fresh  sensation,  he  is 
apt  to  be  serenely  indifferent  whether  the  creator  of 
it  starve  bodily  or  pine  mentally  from  the  lack  of  a 
cordial  human  shout  of  recognition. 

There  would  appear,  on  a  slight  view  of  the  matter, 
to  be  no  reason  for  the  little  notice  which  Hawthorne's 
early  productions  received.  The  subjects  were  mostly 
drawn  from  the  traditions  and  written  records  of 
New  England,  and  gave  the  '-  beautiful  strangeness  '' 
of  imagination  to  objects,  incidents,  and  characters 
which  were  familiar  facts  in  the  popular  mind.  The 
style,  while  it  had  a  purity,  sweetness,  and  grace 
which  satisfied  the  most  fastidious  and  exacting 
taste,  had,  at  the  same  time,  more  than  the  simpli- 
city and  clearness  of  an  ordinary  school-book.  But, 
though  the  subjects  and  the  style  were  thus  popular, 
there  was   something   in    the    shaping   and    informing 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE^-  .  ^'/221 

spirit  which  failed  to  awaken  interest,  or  awak- 
ened interest  without  exciting  delight.  Misanthro^ 
py,  when  it  has  its  source  in  passion,  —  when  it  is 
fierce,  bitter,  fiery,  and  scornful,  —  when  it  vigorous- 
ly echoes  the  aggressive  discontent  of  the  world,  and 
furiously  tramples  on  the  institutions  and  the  men, 
luckily  rather  than  rightfully,  in  the  ascendant,  —  this 
is  always  popular;  but  a  misanthropy  which  springs 
from  insight,  —  a  misanthropy  which  is  lounging, 
languid,  sad,  and  depressing,  —  a  misanthropy  which 
remorselessly  looks  through  cursing  misanthropes  and 
chirping  men  of  the  world  with  the  same  sure,  de- 
tecting glance  of  reason,  —  a  misanthropy  which  has 
no  fanaticism,  and  which  casts  the  same  ominous  doubt 
on  subjectively  morbid  as  on  subjectively  moral  action, 
—  a  misanthropy  which  has  no  respect  for  impulses, 
but  has  a  terrible  perception  of  spiritual  laws,  —  this 
is  a  misanthropy  which  can  expect  no  wide  recog- 
nition ;  and  it  would  be  vain  to  deny  that  traces  ot 
this  kind  of  misanthropy  are  to  be  found  in  Haw- 
thorne's earlier,  and  are  not  altogether  absent  from 
his  later  works.  He  had  spiritual  insight,  but  it  did 
not  penetrate  to  the  sources  of  spiritual  joy  ;  and  his 
deepest  glimpses  of  truth  were  calculated  rather  to 
sadden  than  to  inspire.  A  blandly  sceptical  distrust 
of  human  nature  was  the  result  of  his  most  piercing 


222  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

glances  into  the  human  soul.  He  had  humor,  and 
sometimes  humor  of  a  delicious  kind ;  but  this  sun- 
shine of  the  soul  was  but  sunshine  breaking  through, 
or  lighting  up,  a  sombre  and  ominous  cloud.  Thero 
was  also  observable  in  his  earlier  stories  a  lack  of 
vigor,  as  if  the  power  of  his  will  had  been  impaired 
by  the  very  process  which  gave  depth  and  excursive- 
ness  to  his  mental  vision.  Throughout,  the  impres- 
sion is  conveyed  of  a  shy  recluse,  alternately  bashful 
in  disposition  and  bold  in  thought,  gifted  with  origi- 
nal and  various  capacities,  but  capacities  which  seemed 
to  have  been  developed  in  the  shade.  Shakespeare 
calls  moonlight  the  sunlight  sick;  and  it  is  in  some 
such  moonlight  of  the  mind  that  the  genius  of  Haw- 
thorne found  its  first  expression.  A  mild  melan- 
choly, sometimes  deepening  into  gloom,  sometimes 
brightening  into  a  "humorous  sadness,"  characterized 
his  early  creations.  Like  his  own  Hepzibah  Pyn- 
cheon,  he  appeared  "  to  be  walking  in  a  dream  " ;  or 
rather,  the  life  and  reality  assumed  by  his  emotions 
*'  made  all  outward  occurrences  unsubstantial,  like 
the  teasing  phantasms  of  an  unconscious  slumber." 
Though  dealing  largely  in  description,  and  with  the 
most  accurate  perceptions  of  outward  objects,  he  still, 
to  use  again  his  own  words,  gives  the  impression 
of  a  man  "chiefly  accustomed  to  look  inward,   and 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  223 

to  whom  external  matters  are  of  little  value  oi  im- 
port, unless  they  bear  relation  to  something  wiihin 
his  own  mind."  But  that  "  something  within  his  own 
mind"  was  often  an  unpleasant  something,  —  perhaps 
a  ghastly  occult  perception  of  deformity  and  sin  in 
what  appeared  outwardly  fair  and  good;  so  that  the 
reader  felt  a  secret  dissatisfaction  with  the  disposition 
which  directed  the  genius,  even  in  the  homage  he 
awarded  to  the  genius  itself.  As  psychological  por- 
traits of  morbid  natures,  his  delineations  of  character 
might  have  given  a  purely  intellectual  satisfaction; 
but  there  was  audible,  to  the  delicate  ear,  a  faint  and 
muffled  growl  of  personal  discontent,  which  showed 
they  were  not  mere  exercises  of  penetrating  imagi- 
native analysis,  but  had  in  them  tjie  morbid  vitaUty 
of  a  despondent  mood. 

Yet^  after  admitting  these  peculiarities,  nobody  who 
is  now  drawn  to  the  "  Twice  -Told  Tales,"  from  his 
interest  in  the  later  romances  of  Hawthorne,  can  fail 
to  wonder  a  little  at  the  limited  number  of  readers 
they  attracted  on  their  original  publication ;  for  many 
of  these  stories  are  at  once  a  representation  of  early 
New  England  life  and  a  criticism  of  it.  They  have 
much  in  them  of  the  deepest  truth  of  history.  "  The 
Legends  of  the  Province  House,"  "  The  Gray  Cham- 
pion,"  "The   Gentle   Boy,"   "The   JVIinister's    Black 


224  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

Veil,"  "  Endicott  and  the  Red  Cross,"  not  to  men- 
tion others,  contain  important  matter  which  cannot 
be  found  in  Bancroft  or  even  Winthrop.  LJhey  ex- 
hibit the  inward  struggles  of  New  England  men  and 
women  with  some  of  the  darkest  problems  of  exist- 
ence, and  have  more  vital  import  to  thoughtful 
minds  than  the  records  of  Indian  or  Revolutionary 
warfare.  In  the  "  Prophetic  Pictures,"  "  Fancy's 
Show-Box,"  "The  Great  Carbuncle,"  ^^  The  Haunted 
Mind,"  and  "  Edward  Fane's  Rose-Bud,"  there  are 
flashes  of  moral  insight,  which  light  up,  for  the  mo- 
ment, the  darkest  recesses  of  the  individual  mind; 
and  few  sermons  reach  to  the  depth  of  thought  and 
sentiment  from  which  these  seemingly  airy  sketches 
draw  their  sombre  lifej  It  is  common,  for  instance, 
for  religious  moralists  to  insist  on  the  great  spiritual 
truth,  that  wicked  thoughts  and  impulses,  which  cir- 
cumstances prevent  from  passing  into  wicked  acts, 
are  still  deeds  in  the  sight  of  God ;  but  the  living 
truth  subsides  into  a  dead  truism,  as  enforced  by 
commonplace  preachers.  In  "  Fancy's  Show-Box," 
Hawthorne  seizes  the  prolific  idea ;  and  the  respecta- 
ble merchant  and  respected  church-member,  in  the 
still  hour  of  his  own  meditations,  convicts  himself  of 
being  a  liar,  cheat,  thief,  seducer,  and  murderer,  as 
he  casts  his  glance  over  the  mental  events  which  form 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE.  225 

his  spiritual  biography.  Interspersed  with  serious 
histories  and  morah'ties  Hke  these  are  others  which 
embody  the  sweet  and  playful,  though  still  thought- 
ful and  slightly  saturnine  action  of  Hawthorne's  mind, 
~like  "The  Seven  Vagabonds,"  "Snow-Flakes," 
"The  Lily's  Quest,"  "Mr.  Higgenbotham's  Catastro- 
phe," "  Little  Annie's  Ramble,"  "  Sights  from  a 
Steeple,"  "  Sunday  at  Home,"  and  "  A  Eill  from  the 
Town-Pump." 

The  "  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse "  are  intellectu- 
ally and  artistically  much  superior  to  the  "  Twice- 
Told  Tales."  The  twenty- three  stories  and  essays 
which  make  up  the  volumes  are  almost  perfect  of 
their  kind.  Each  is  complete  in  itself,  and  many 
might  be  expanded  into  long  romances  by  the  simple 
method  of  developing  the  possibilities  of  their  shad- 
owy types  of  character  into  appropriate  incidents. 
In  description,  narration,  allegory,  humor,  reason, 
fancy,  subtilty,  inventiveness,  they  exceed  the  best 
productions  of  Addison ;  but  they  want  Addison's 
sensuous  contentment,  and  sweet  and  kindly  spirit. 
Though  the  author  denies  that  he  has  exhibited  his 
own  individual  attributes  in  these  "Mosses,"  though 
he  professes  not  to  be  "  one  of  those  supremely  hos- 
pitable people  w^ho  serve  up  their  own  hearts  deli- 
cately fried,  with  brain-sauce,  as  a  titbit  for  their 
10*  o 


226  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

beloved  public,"  —  yet  it  is  none  the  less  apparent 
that  he  has  diffused  through  each  tale  and  sketch 
the  life  of  the  mental  mood  to  which  it  owed  its 
existence,  and  that  one  individuality  pervades  and 
colors  the  whole  collection.  /The  defect  of  the  seri- 
ous stories  is,  that  character  is  introduced,  not  as 
thinking,  but  as  the  illustration  of  thought.  The 
persons  are  ghostly,  with  a  sad  lack  of  flesh  and 
blood.  They  are  phantasmal  symbols  of  a  medita- 
tive and  imaginative  analysis  of  human  passions  and 
aspirations.  The  dialogue,  especially,  is  bookish, 
as  though  the  personages  knew  their  speech  was  to 
be  printed,  and  were  careful  of  the  collocation  and 
cadence  of  their  words.  The  author  throughout  is 
evidently  more  interested  in  his  large,  wide,  deep, 
indolently  serene,  and  lazily  sure  and  critical  view 
of  the  conflict  of  ideas  and  passions,  than  he  is  with 
the  individuals  who  embody  them.  He  shows  moral 
insight  without  moral  earnestness.  He  cannot  con- 
tract his  mind  to  the  patient  delineation  of  a  moral 
individual,  but  attempts  to  use  individuals  in  order 
to  express  the  last  results  of  patient  moral  percep 
tion.  Young  Goodman  Brown  and  Roger  Malvin 
are  not  persons  ;  they  are  the  mere  loose,  personal 
expression  of  subtile  thinking.  "  The  Celestial  Rail- 
road," "  The  Procession  of  Life,"  "  Earth's  Holocaust," 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  227 

•"The  isosom  Serpent,"  indicate  thought  of  a  charac- 
ter equally  deep,  delicate,  and  comprehensive;  but 
the  characters  are  ghosts  of  men  rather  than  sub- 
stantial individualities  J  In  the  "  Mosses  from  an  Old 
Manse,"  we  are  really  studying  the  phenomena  of 
human  nature,  while,  for  the  time,  we  beguile  our- 
selves into  the  belief  that  we  are  following  the  for- 
tunes of  individual  natures. 

Up  to  this  time,  the  writings  of  Hawthorne  con- 
veyed the  im^ession  of  a  genius  in  which  insight 
so  dominated  over  impulse  that  it  was  rather  men- 
tally and  morally  curious  than  mentally  and  morally 
impassioned.  The  quality  evidently  wanting  to  its 
full  expression  was  intensity.  In  the  romance  of 
*^  The  Scarlet  Letter "  he  first  made  his  genius  effi- 
cient by  penetrating  it  with  passion.  This  book 
forced  itself  into  attention  by  its  inherent  power ; 
and  the  author's  name,  previously  known  only  to  a 
limited  circle  of  readers,  suddenly  became  a  familiar 
word  in  the  mouths  of  the  great  reading  public  of 
America  and  England.  It  may  be  said'  that  it  "  cap- 
tivated "  nobody,  but  took  everybody  captive.  Its 
power  could  neither  be  denied  nor  resisted.  There 
were  growls  of  disapprobation  from  novel-readers,  that 
Hester  Prynne  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Dimmesdale  were 
subjected  to  cruel  punishments  unknown  to  the  juris- 


228  NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE. 

prudence  of  fiction,  —  that  the  author  was  an  inquis- 
itor who  put  his  victims  on  the  rack,  —  and  that 
neither  amusement  nor  dehght  resulted  from  seeing 
the  contortions  and  hearing  the  groans  of  these  mar- 
tyrs of  sin  ;  but  the  fact  was  no  less  plain  that  Haw- 
thorne had  ^or  once  compelled  the  most  superficial 
lovers  of  romance  to  submit  themselves  to  the  magic 
of  his  genius.  The  readers  of  Dickens  voted  him, 
with  three  times  three,  to  the  presidency  of  their 
republic  of  letters;  the  readers  of  Hawthorne  were 
caught  by  a  coup  d'etat,  and  fretfully  submitted  to  a 
despot  whom  they  could  not  depose. 

The  success  of  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  is  an  exam- 
ple of  the  advantage  which  an  author  gains  by  the 
simple  concentration  of  his  powers  on  one  absorbing 
subject.  In  the  "  Twice -Told  Tales"  and  the  "Moss- 
es from  an  Old  Manse  "  Hawthorne  had  exhibited  a 
wider  range  of  sight  and  insight  than  in  "  The  Scar- 
let Letter."  Indeed,  in  the  little  sketch  of  "  Endi- 
cott  and  the  Red  Cross,"  written  twenty  years  before, 
he  had  included  in  a  few  sentences  the  whole  matter 
which  he  afterwards  treated  in  his  famous  story.  In 
describing  the  various  inhabitants  of  an  early  New 
England  town,  as  far  as  they  were  representative, 
he  touched  incidentally  on  a  "  young  woman,  with 
no   mean    share    of  beauty,   whose   doom   it   was   to 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  229 

wear  the  letter  A  on  the  breast  of  her  gown,  in  the 
eyes  of  all  the  world  and  her  own  children.  And 
even  her  own  children  knew  what  that  initial  signi- 
fied. Sporting  with  her  infamy,  the  lost  and  desper- 
ate creature  had  embroidered  the  fatal  token  in  scarlet 
cloth,  with  golden  thread  and  the  nicest  art  of  needle- 
work ;  so  that  the  capital  A  might  have  been  thought 
to  mean  Admirable,  or  anything,  rather  than  Adul- 
teress." Here  is  the  germ  of  the  whole  pathos  and 
terror  of  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  '* ;  but  it  is  hardly 
noted  in  the  throng  of  symbols,  equally  pertinent,  in 
the  few  pages  of  the  little  sketch  from  which  we 
have  quoted. 

(Two  characteristics  of  Hawthorne's  genius  stand 
plainly  out  in  the  conduct  and  characterization  of  the 
romance  of  "  The  Scarlet  Letter,"  which  were  less 
obviously  prominent  in  his  previous  works.  The 
first  relates  to  his  subordination  of  external  incidents 
to  inward  events.  Mr.  James's  "  solitary  horseman  " 
does  more  in  one  chapter  than  Hawthorne's  hero  in 
twenty  chapters ;  but  then  James  deals  with  the 
arms  of  men,  while  Hawthorne  deals  with  their  souls. 
Hawthorne  relies  almost  entirely  for  the  interest  of 
his  story  on  what  is  felt  and  done  within  the  minds 
of  his  characters.  Even  his  most  picturesque  descrip- 
tions  and   narratives  are   only  one   tenth   matter  to 


230  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

nine  tenths  spirit.     The   results  that  follow  from  one 

external  act  of  folly  or  crime  are  to  him  enough  for 

an   Iliad   of  woes.      It   might   be   supposed   that   his 

whole    theory   of  Romantic   Art  was  based  on  these 

tremendous  lines  of  Wordsworth :  — 

"Action  is  momentary, — 
The  motion  of  a  muscle,  this  way  or  that : 
Suffering  is  long,  obscure,  and  infinite." 

The  second  characteristic  of  his  genius  is  con- 
nected with  the  first.  With  his  insight  of  individual 
souls  he  combines  a  far  deeper  insight  of  the  spirit- 
ual laws  whicb  govern  the  strangest  aberrations  of 
individual  souls.  But  it  seems  to  us  that  his  mental 
eye,  keen-sighted  and  far-sighted  as  it  is,  overlooks 
the  merciful  modifications  of  the  austere  code  whose 
pitiless  action  it  so  clearly  discerns.  In  his  long  and 
patient  brooding  over  the  spiritual  phenomena  of 
Puritan  life,  it  is  apparent,  to  the  least  critical  ob- 
server, that  he  has  imbibed  a  deep  personal  antip- 
athy to  the  Puritanic  ideal  of  character ;  but  it  is  no 
less  apparent  that  his  intellect  and  imagination  have 
been  strangely  fascinated  by  the  Puritanic  idea  of  jus- 
tice. His  brain  has  been  subtly  infected  by  the  Puri- 
tanic perception  of  Law,  without  being  warmed  by 
the  Puritanic  faith  in  Grace.j  Individually,  he  would 
much  prefer  to  have   been   one   of  his   own  "  Seven 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  231 

Vagabonds"  rather  than  one  of  the  austerest  preach- 
ers of  the  primitive  church  of  New  England ;  but  the 
austerest  preacher  of  the  primitive  church  of  New  Eng- 
land would  have  been  more  tender  and  considerate 
to  a  real  Mr.  Dimmesdale  and  a  real  Hester  Prynne 
than  this  modern  romancer  has  been  to  their  typical 
representatives  in  the  world  of  imagination.  Through- 
out "The  Scarlet  Letter"  we  seem  to  be  following* 
the  guidance  of  an  author  who  is  personally  good- 
natured,  but  intellectually  and  morally  relentless. 

"  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  Hawthorne's 
next  work,  while  it  has  less  concentration  of  passion 
and  tension  of  mind  than  "  The  Scarlet  Letter,"  in- 
cludes a  wider  range  of  observation,  reflection,  and 
character;  and  the  morality,  dreadful  as  fate,  which 
hung  like  a  black  cloud  over  the  personages  of  the 
previous  story,  is  exhibited  in  more  relief.  Although 
the  book  has  no  imaginative  creation  equal  to  little 
Pearl,  it  still  contains  "  numerous  examples  of  char- 
acterization at  once  delicate  and  deep.  Clifford,  es- 
pecially, is  a  study  in  psychology,  as  well  as  a 
marvellously  subtile  delineation  of  enfeebled  man- 
hood. The  general  idea  of  the  story  is  this,  — 
"that  the  wrong-doing  of  one  generation  lives  into 
the  successive  ones,  and,  divesting  itself  of  every 
temporary  advantage,  becomes  a  pure  and  uncontrol- 


232  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

lable  mischief"  ;  and  the  mode  in  which  this  idea  is 
carried  out  shows  great  force,  fertility,  and  refine- 
ment of  mind.  A  weird  fancy,  sporting  with  the 
facts  detected  by  a  keen  observation,  gives  to  every 
gable  of  the  Seven  Gables,  every  room  in  the  House, 
every  burdock  growing  rankly  before  the  door,  a  sym- 
bolic significance.  The  queer  mansion  is  haunted,  — 
haunted  with  thoughts  which  every  moment  are  lia- 
ble to  take  ghostly  shape.  All  the  Pyncheons  whc 
have  resided  in  it  appear  to  have  infected  the  very 
timbers  and  walls  with  the  spiritual  essence  of  their 
lives,  and  each  seems  ready  to  pass  from  a  memory 
into  a  presence.  The  stern  theory  of  the  author 
regarding  the  hereditary  transmission  of  family  qual- 
ities, and  the  visiting  of  the  sins  of  the  fathers  on 
the  heads  of  their  children,  almost  wins  our  reluc- 
tant assent  through  the  pertinacity  with  which  the 
generations  of  the  Pyncheon  race  are  made  not 
merely  to  live  in  the  blood  and  brain  of  their  de- 
scendants, but  to  cling  to  their  old  abiding-place  on 
earth,  so  that  to  inhabit  the  house  is  to  breathe 
the  Pyncheon  soul  and  assimilate  the  Pyncheon  in- 
dividuality. The  whole  representation,  masterly  as 
it  is,  considered  as  an  effort  of  intellectual  and  im- 
aginative power,  would  still  be  morally  bleak,  were  it 
not  for  the   sunshine   and   warmth  radiated  from  the 


NATHANIEL    HAWTHORNE.  233 

character  of  Phoebe.  In  this  deh'ghtful  creatioD, 
Hawthorne  for  once  gives  himself  up  to  homely 
human  nature,  and  has  succeeded  in  delineating  a 
New  England  girl,  cheerful,  blooming,  practical,  affec- 
tionate, efficient,  full  of  innocence  and  happiness,, 
with  all  the  "  handiness  "  and  native  sagacity  of  her 
class,  and  so  true  and  close  to  nature  that  the 
process  by  which  she  is  slightly  idealized  is  com- 
pletely hidden. 

In  this  romance  there  is  also  more  humor  than  in 
any  of  his  other  works.  It  peeps  out,  even  in  the 
most  serious  passages,  in  a  kind  of  demure  rebellion 
against  the  fanaticism  of  his  remorseless  intelligence. 
In  the  description  of  the  Pyncheon  poultry,  which 
we  think  unexcelled  by  anything  in  Dickens  for 
quaintly  fanciful  humor,  the  author  seems  to  indulge 
in  a  sort  of  parody  of  his  own  doctrine  of  the  he- 
reditary transmission  of  family  qualities.  At  any 
rate,  that  strutting  chanticleer,  with  his  two  meagre 
wives  and  one  wizened  chicken,  is  a  sly  side  fleer 
at  the  tragic  aspect  of  the  law  of  descent.  Miss 
Hepzibah  Pyncheon,  her  shop,  and  her  customers, 
are  so  delightful,  that  the  reader  would  willingly 
spare  a  good  deal  of  Clifford  and  Judge  Pyncheon 
and  Holgrave,  for  more  details  of  them  and  Phoebe. 
Uncle  Veuner,  also,  the  old  wood-sawyer,  who  boasts 


234  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

•*  that  'he  lias  seen  a  good  deal  of  the  world,  not  only 
in  people's  kitchens  and  back-yards,  but  at  the  street- 
corners,  and  on  the  wharves,  and  in  other  places 
where  his  business"  called  him,  and  who,  on  the 
strength  of  this  comprehensive  experience,  feels  qual- 
ified to  give  the  final  decision  in  every  case  which 
tasks  the  resources  of  human  wisdom,  is  a  very 
much  more  humane  and  interesting  gentleman  than 
the  Judge.  Indeed,  one  cannot  but  regret  that  Haw- 
thorne should  be  so  economical  of  his  undoubted 
stores  of  humor,  and  that,  in  the  two  romances  he 
has  since  written,  humor,  in  the  form  of  character, 
does  not  appear  at  all.' 

Before  proceeding  to  the  consideration  of  "The 
Blithedale  Romance,"  it  is  necessary  to  say  a  few 
words  on  the  seeming  separation  of  Hawthorne's  ge- 
nius from  his  will.  He  has  none  of  that  ability 
which  enabled  Scott  and  enables  Dickens  to  force 
their  powers  into  action,  and  to  make  what  was 
begun  in  drudgery  soon  assume  the  character  of 
inspiration.  Hawthorne  cannot  thus  use  his  genius ; 
his  genius  always  uses  him.  This  is  so  true,  that 
he  often  succeeds  better  in  what  calls  forth  his  per- 
sonal antipathies  than  in  what  calls  forth  his  per- 
sonal sympathies.  His  Life  of  General  Pierce,  for 
instance,  is  altogether   destitute   of  life ;   yet  in  writ- 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  235 

ing  it  he  must  have  exerted  himself  to  the  utmost, 
as  his  object  was  to  urge  the  claims  of  an  old  and 
dear  friend  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Republic.  The 
style,  of  course,  is  excellent,  as  it  is  impossible  for 
Hawthorne  to  write  bad  English;  but  the  genius  of 
the  man  has  deserted  him.  General  Pierce,  whom 
he  loves,  he  draws  so  feebly,  that  one  doubts,  while 
reading  the  biography,  if  such  a  man  exists;  Hol- 
lingsworth,  whom  he  hates,  is  so  vividly  character- 
ized, that  the  doubt  is,  while  we  read  the  romance, 
whether  such  a  man  can  possibly  be  fictitious. 

Midway  between  such  a  work  as  the  "Life  of 
General  Pierce"  and  "The  Scarlet  Letter"  may  be 
placed  "The  Wonder-Book"  and  "Tangle wood  Tales." 
In  these  Hawthorne's  genius  distinctly  appears,  and 
appears  in  its  most  lovable,  though  not  in  its  deepest 
form.  These  delicious  stories,  founded  on  the  my- 
thology of  Greece,  were  written  for  children,  but 
they  delight  men  and  women  as  well.  Hawthorne 
never  pleases  grown  people  so  much  as  when  he 
writes  with  an  eye  to  the  enjoyment  of  little  people. 

Now  "  The  Blithedale  Romance "  is  far  from  be- 
ing so  pleasing  a  performance  as  *'  Tanglewood  Tales," 
yet  it  very  much  better  illustrates  the  operation,  in- 
dicates the  quality,  and  expresses  the  power,  of  the 
author's    genius.      His    great    books    appear    not    so 


236  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

much  created  by  him  as  through  him.  They  have 
the  character  of  revelations,  —  he,  the  instrument,  be- 
ing often  troubled  with  the  burden  they  impose  on 
his  mind.  His  profoundest  glances  into  individual 
souls  are  Hke  the  marvels  of  clairvoyance.  It  would 
seem,  that,  in  the  production  of  such  a  work  as 
"  The  Blithedale  Romance,"  his  mind  had  hit  acci- 
dentally, as  it  were,  on  an  idea  or  fact  mysteriously 
related  to  some  morbid  sentiment  in  the  inmost  core 
of  his  nature,  and  to  numerous  scattered  observations 
of  human  life,  lying  unrelated  in  his  imagination. 
In  a  sort  of  meditative  dream,  his  intellect  drifts  in 
the  direction  to  which  the  subject  points,  broods  pa- 
tiently over  it,  looks  at  it,  looks  into  it,  and  at  last 
looks  through  it  to  the  law  by  which  it  is  governed. 
Gradually,  individual  beings,  definite  in  spiritual  qual- 
ity, l3ut  shadowy  in  substantial  form,  group  them- 
selves around  this  central  conception,  and  by  degrees 
assume  an  outward  body  and  expression  correspond- 
ing to  their  internal  nature.  On  the  depth  and  in- 
tensity of  the  mental  mood,  the  force  of  the  fascina- 
tion it  exerts  over  him,  and  the  length  of  time  it 
holds  him  captive,  depend  the  solidity  and  substance 
of  the  individual  characterizations.  In  this  way  Miles 
Coverdale,  Hollingsworth,  Westervelt,  Zenobia,  and 
Priscilla  become  real  persons  to  the  mind  which  has 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  237 

called  them  into  being.  He  knows  every  secret  and 
watches  every  motion  of  their  souls,  yet  is,  in  a 
measure,  independent  of  them,  and  pretends  to  no 
authority  by  which  he  can  alter  the  destiny  which 
consigns  them  to  misery  or  happiness.  They  drift 
to  their  doom  by  the  same  law  by  which  they  drifted 
across  the  path  of  his  vision.  Individually,  he  abhors 
Hollingsworth,  and  would  like  to  annihilate  Wester- 
velt,  yet  he  allows  the  superb  Zenobia  to  be  their 
victim ;  and  if  his  readers  object  that  the  effect  of 
the  whole  representation  is  painful,  he  will  doubtless 
agree  with  them,  but  sorrowfully  confess  his  incapaci- 
ty honestly  to  alter  a  sentence.  He  professes  to 
tell  the  story  as  it  was  revealed  to  him ;  and  the 
license  in  which  a  romancer  might  indulge  is  denied 
to  a  biographer  of  spirits.  Show  him  a  fallacy  in 
his  logic  of  passion  and  character,  point  out  a  false 
or  defective  step  in  his  analysis,  and  he  will  gladly 
alter  the  whole  to  your  satisfaction  ;  but  four  human 
souls, -such  as  he  has  described,  being  given,  their 
mutual  attractions  and  repulsions  will  end,  he  feels 
assured,  in  just  such  a  catastrophe  as  he  has  stated. 
Eight  years  have  passed  since  "The  Blithedale 
Komance  "  was  written,  and  during  nearly  the  whole 
of  this  period  Hawthorne  has  resided  abroad.  "  The 
Marble   Faun,"  which  must,   on   the   whole,   be   con- 


238  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

sidered  the  greatest  of  his  works,  proves  that  his 
genius  has  widened  and  deepened  in  this  interval 
without  any  alteration  or  modification  of  its  charac 
teristic  merits  and  characteristic  defects.  The  mosl 
obvious  excellence  of  the  work  is  the  vivid  truthful 
ness  of  its  descriptions  of  Italian  life,  manners,  and 
scenery ;  and,  considered  merely  as  a  record  of  a 
tour  in  Italy,  it  is  of  great  interest  and  attractive- 
ness. The  opinions  on  Art,  and  the  special  criti- 
cisms on  the  masterpieces  of  architecture,  sculpture, 
and  painting,  also  possess  a  value  of  their  own.  The 
story  might  have  been  told,  and  the  characters  fully 
represented,  in  one  third  of  the  space  devoted  to 
them,  yet  description  and  narration  are  so  artfully 
combined  that  each  assists  to  give  interest  to  the 
other.  Hawthorne  is  one  of  those  true  observers 
who  concentrate  in  observation  every  power  of  their 
minds.  He  has  accurate  sight  and  piercing  insight. 
When  he  modifies  either  the  form  or  the  spirit  of 
the  objects  he  describes,  he  does  it  either  by  viewing 
them  through  the  medium  of  an  imagined  mind  or 
by  obeying  associations  which  they  themselves  sug- 
gest. We  might  quote  from  the  descriptive  portions 
of  the  work  a  hundred  pages,  at  least,  which  would 
demonstrate  how  closely  accurate  observation .  io  con- 
nected with  the  highest  powers  of  the  intellect  and 
imagination. 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  239 

The  style  of  the  book  is  perfect  of  its  kind,  and,  if 
Hawthorne  had  written  nothing  else,  would  entitle  him 
to  rank  among  the  great  masters  of  English  composi- 
tion. Walter  Savage  Landor  is  reported  to  have  said 
of  an  author  whom  he  knew  in  his  youth,  "  My  friend 
wrote  excellent  English,  a  language  now  obsolete." 
Had  "  The  Marble  Faun  "  appeared  before  he  uttered 
this  sarcasm,  the  wit  of  the  remark  would  have  been 
pointless.  Hawthorne  not  only  writes  English,  but  the 
sweetest,  simplest,  and  clearest  English  that  ever  has 
been  made  the  vehicle  of  equal  depth,  variety,  and 
subtilty  of  thought  and  emotion.  His  mind  is  re- 
flected in  his  style,  as  a  face  is  reflected  in  a  mir- 
ror ;  and  the  latter  does  not  give  back  its  image 
with  less  appearance  of  effort  than  the  former.  His 
excellence  consists  not  so  much  in  using  common 
words  as  in  making  common  words  express  uncom 
mon  things.  Swift,  Addison,  Goldsmith,  not  to  men 
tion  others,  wrote  with  as  much  simplicity ;  but  the 
style  of  neither  embodies  an  individuality  so  com 
plex,  passions  so  strange  and  intense,  sentiments  so 
fantastic  and  preternatural,  thoughts  so  profound  and 
delicate,  and  imaginations  so  remote  from  the  recog- 
nized limits  of  the  ideal,  as  find  an  orderly  outlet  in 
the  pure  English  of  Hawthorne.  He  has  hardly  a 
word   to  which   Mrs.  Trimmer   would  primly   object, 


240  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

hardly  a  sentence  which  would  call  forth  the  frosty 
anathema  of  Blair,  Hurd,  Karnes,  or  Whately,  and 
yet  he  contrives  to  embody  in  his  simple  style  qual- 
ities which  would  almost  excuse  the  verbal  extrava- 
gances of  Carlyle. 

1  In  regard  to  the  characterization  and  plot  of  "  The 
Marble  Faun,"  there  is  room  for  widely  varying 
opinions.  Hilda,  Miriam,  and  Donatello  will  be 
generally  received  as  superior  in  power  and  depth 
to  any  of  Hawthorne's  previous  creations  of  charac- 
ter; Donatello,  especially,  must  be  considered  one  of 
the  most  original  and  exquisite  conceptions  in  the 
whole  range  of  romance;  but  the  story  in  which 
they  appear  will  seem  to  many  an  unsolved  puzzle, 
and  even  the  tolerant  and  interpretative  "gentle 
reader"  will  be  troubled  with  the  unsatisfactory  con- 
clusion. It  is  justifiable  for  a  romancer  to  sting  the 
curiosity  of  his  readers  with  a  mystery,  only  on  the 
implied  obligation  to  explain  it  at  last ;  but  this  story 
begins  in  mystery  only  to  end  in  niistj  The  sugges- 
tive faculty  is  tormented  rather  than  genially  excited, 
and  in  the  end  is  left  a  prey  to  doubts.  The  cen- 
tral idea  of  the  story,  the  necessity  of  sin  to  convert 
such  a  creature  as  Donatello  into  a  moral  being,  is 
not  happily  illustrated  in  the  leading  event.  When 
Donatello  kills  the  wretch  who  malignantly  dogs  the 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE.  241 

steps  of  Miriam,  all  readers  think  that  Donatello 
committed  no  sin  at  all;  and  the  reason  is,  that 
Hawthorne  has  deprived  the  persecutor  of  Miriam 
of  all  human  attributes,  made  him  an  allegorical  rep- 
resentation of  one  of  the  most  fiendish  forms  of  un- 
mixed evil,  so  that  we  welcome  his  destruction  with 
something  of  the  same  feeling  with  which,  in  follow- 
ing the  allegory  of  Spenser  or  Bunyan,  we  rejoice 
in  the  hero's  victory  over  the  Blatant  Beast  or  Gi- 
ant Despair.  Conceding,  however,  that  Donatello's 
act  was  murder,  and  not  *' justifiable  homicide,"  we 
are  still  not  sure  that  the  author's  conception  of  his 
nature  and  of  the  change  caused  in  his  nature  by 
that  act,  are  carried  out  with  a  felicity  correspond- 
ing to  the  original  conception. 

In  the  first  volume,  and  in  the  early  part  of  the 
second,  the  author's  hold  on  his  design  is  compara- 
tively firm,  but  it  somewhat  relaxes  as  he  proceeds, 
and  in  the  end  it  seems  almost  to  escape  from  his 
grasp.  Few  can  be  satisfied  with  the  concluding 
chapters,  for  the  reason  that  nothing  is  really  con- 
cluded. We  are  willing  to  follow  the  ingenious  pro- 
cesses of  Calhoun's  deductive  logic,  because  we  are 
sure,  that,  however  severely  they  task  the  faculty 
of  attention,  they  will  lead  to  some  positive  result ; 
but  Hawthorne's  logic  of  events  leaves  us  in  the  end 
11  p 


242  NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE. 

bewildered  in  a  labyrinth  of  guesses.  The  book  is, 
on  the  whole,  such  a  great  book,  that  its  defects  are 
felt  with  all  the  more  force. 

In  this  rapid  glance  at  some  of  the  peculiarities 
of  Hawthorne's  genius,  we  have  not,  of  course,  been 
able  to  do  full  justice  to  the  special  merits  of  the 
works  passed  in  review ;  but  we  trust  that  we  have 
said  nothing  w^hich  would  convey  the  impression  that 
we  do  not  place  them  among  the  most  remarkable 
romances  produced  in  an  age  in  which  romance-writ- 
ing has  called  forth  some  of  the  highest  powers  of 
the  human  mind.  In  intellect  and  imagination,  in 
the  faculty  of  discerning  spirits  and  detecting  laws, 
we  doubt  if  any  living  novelist  is  his  equal ;  but  his 
genius,  in  its  creative  action,  has  been  heretofore 
attracted  to  the  dark  rather  than  the  bright  side  of 
the  interior  life  of  humanity,  and  the  geniality  which 
evidently  is  in  him  has  rarely  found  adequate  ex- 
pression. In  the  many  works  which  he  may  still  be 
expected  to  write,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  his  mind 
will  lose  some  of  its  sadness  of  tone  without  losing 
any  of  its  subtilty  and  depth  ;  but,  in  any  event,  it 
would  be  unjust  to  deny  that  he  has  already  done 
enough  to  insure  him  a  commanding  po^iitipn  in 
American  literature  as  long  as  American  literature 
has  an  existence. 


IX. 

EDWARD  EVERETT.* 

IT  is  certainly  fit,  gentlemen,  that  the  sense  of 
bereavement  which  this  city  and  the  whole  na- 
tion have  felt  in  the  death  of  Mr.  -Everett  should 
find  emphatic  expression  in  the  Club  of  which  he 
was  the  honored  President.  Know-n  to  every  mem- 
ber as  the  most  exquisitely  affable  of  presiding  offi- 
cers; a  chairman  with  the  gracious  and  graceful 
manners  of  a  host ;  ever  ready  to  listen  as  to  speak ; 
and  masking  the  eminence,  which  all  were  glad  to 
acknowledge,  in  that  bland  and  benignant  courtesy, 
of  which  all  were  made  to  feel  the  charm,  —  his 
presence  gave  a  peculiar  dignity  to  our  meetings., 
which  it  will  be  impossible  to  replace,  and  impressed 
on  all  of  us  the  conviction,  that  to  his  other  gifts 
and  accomplishments  must  be  added  the  distinction 
of  having  been  the  most  accomplished  gentleman  of 
his  time.     Indeed,  it  is  probable,  that,  in  this  quality 

*  Read  before  the  Thursday  Evenmg  Club,  at  its  meeting  on 
January  26,  1865. 


244  EDWARD   EYERETT. 

of  high-bred  and  inbred  courtesy,  which  we  all  hav* 
such  good  cauoe  to  admire  and  to  remember,  may  be 
found  the  explanation  and  justification  of  some  things 
in  his  character  and  career  which  have  been  sub 
jected  to  adverse  and  acrimonious  criticism ;  and,  in 
the  few  remarks  I  propose  to  make,  allow  me  to 
throw  into  relations  to  this  felicity  of  his  nature, 
the  powers  and  achievements  which  have  made  him 
so  widely  famous,  and,  what  is  better,  so  widely 
mourned. 

Mr.  Everett  was  born  with  that  fineness  of  men 
tal  and  of  bodily  organization,  the  sensitiveness  of 
which  is  hardly  yet  thoroughly  tolerated  by  the 
world  which  still  profits  by  its  superiorities.  There 
was  refinement  in  the  very  substance  of  his  being; 
by  a  necessity  of  his  constitution  he  disposed  every- 
thing he  perceived  into  some  orderly  relations  to 
ideas  of  dignity  and  grace ;  he  instinctively  shunned 
what  was  coarse,  discordant,  uncomely,  unbecoming ; 
and  that  internal  world  of  thoughts,  sentiments,  and 
dispositions,  which  each  man  forms  or  re-forms  for 
himself,  and  in  which  he  really  lives,  in  his  case 
obeyed  the  law  of  comeliness,  and  came  out  as 
naturally  in  his  manners  as  in  his  writings,  in  the 
beautiful  urbanity  of  his  behavior,  as  in  the  cadenced 
periods    of   his    eloquence.     The    fascination    of    this 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  245 

must  have  been  felt  even  in  his  childhood,  for  he 
was  an  orator  whose  infant  prattle  attracted  an  au- 
dience ;  and  he  may  be  said  to  have  passed  from  the 
cradle  into  public  life.  To  a  swiftness  and  accuracy 
of  apprehension  which  made  study  the  most  delight- 
ful and  self-rewarding  of  tasks,  he  added  a  general 
brightness,  vigor  and  poise  of  faculties,  which  gave 
premature  promise  of  the  reflection  and  judgment 
which  were  to  come.  By  some  sure  instinct,  the 
friends  who  seemed  combined  in  a  kindly  conspiracy 
to  assist  and  to  spoil  him,  must  have  felt  that  they 
had  to  do  with  a  nature  whose  innate  modesty  was 
its  protection  from  conceit,  and  whose  ambition  to 
excel  was  but  one  form  of  its  ambition  for  excel- 
lence. The  fact  to  be  considered  is,  that,  in  child- 
hood and  in  youth  as  in  manhood  and  age,  there  was 
something  in  him  which  irresistibly  attracted  admi- 
ration and  esteem,  and  made  men  desirous  of  help- 
ing him  on  in  the  path  his  genius  chose,  and  to  the 
goal  from  which  his  destiny  beckoned. 

It  will  be  impossible  here  to  do  more  than  indi- 
cate the  steps  of  that  comprehensive  career,  so  full 
of  distinction  for  himself,  so  full  of  benefit  for  the 
nation,  which  has  been  for  the  past  ten  days  the 
theme  of  so  many  eulogies :  —  the  college  student, 
bearing   away   the  highest  honors   of  his   class ;   the 


246  EDWARD    EVERETT. 

boy-preacher,  whose  pulpit  eloquence  alternately  kin- 
dled and  melted  men  of  maturest  years  ;  the  Greek 
Professor,  whose  knowledge  of  the  finest  and  most 
flexible  instrument  of  human  thought  extorted  the 
admiration  of  the  most  accomplished  of  all  the  trans- 
lators of  Plato;  the  fertile  Writer  and  wide-ranging 
Critic,  whose  familiarity  with  many  languages  only 
added  to  the  energy  and  elegance  with  which  he 
wielded  the  resources  of  his  own ;  the  Representative 
of  Middlesex,  whose  mastery  of  the  minutest  details 
of  political  business  was  not  more  evident  than  his 
ready  grasp  of  the  broader  principles  of  political 
science ;  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  whose  wise 
and  able  administration  gave  a  new  impulse  to  the 
cause  of  education  and  to  some  of  the  most  impor- 
tant of  the  arts  of  peace ;  the  Ambassador,  who  co- 
operated with  his  friend,  the  great  Secretary,  in 
converting  the  provocations  to  what  would  have 
been  one  of  the  most  calamitous  of  all  wars  into  the 
occasion  for  negotiating  one  of  the  most  beneficent 
of  all  treaties ;  the  President  of  Harvard,  bringing 
back  to  his  Alma  Mater  the  culture  he  had  received 
from  her  increased  an  hundred-fold,  and  presenting 
to  the  students  the  noble  example  of  a  scholarship 
which  was  always  teaching,  and  therefore  always 
learning;  the   Secretary  of  State,  whose  brief  posses- 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  247 

sion  of  office  was  yet  sufficient  to  show  with  what 
firmness  of  purpose  he  could  uphold  American  honor, 
and  with  what  prodigality  of  information  he  could 
expound  American  rights ;  the  Orator  of  all  "  occa- 
sions," scattering  through  many  years,  and  from  a 
hundred  platforms,  the  rich  stores  of  his  varied 
knowledge,  the  ripe  results  of  his  large  experience, 
and  the  animating  inspirations  of  his  fervid  soul; 
the  Patriot,  who  ever  made  his  scholarship,  states- 
manship, and  eloquence  serviceable  and  subsidiary  to 
the  interest  and  glory  of  his  country,  and  who,  when 
would-be  parricides  lifted  their  daggers  to  stab  the 
august  mother  who  had  borne  them,  flung  himself, 
with  a  grand  superiority  to  party  prejudices,  and  a 
brave  disdain  of  consequences  to  himself,  into  the 
great  current  of  impassioned  purpose  which  surged 
up  from  the  nation*s  heroic  heart;  the  Christian  phi- 
lanthropist, who,  through  a  long  life,  had  been  the 
object  of  no  insult  or  wrong  which  could  rouse  in 
him  the  fierce  desire  for  vengeance,  and  whose  last 
public  effiart  was  a  magnanimous  plea  for  that  ''  re- 
taliation" which  Christianity  both  allows  and  enjoins: 
—  all  these  claims  to  honor,  all  this  multiform  and 
multiplied  activity,  have  been  the  subjects  of  eager 
and  emulous  panegyric;  and  little  has  been  over 
looked  in  the  loving  and  grateful  survey. 


248  FT)WARD   EVERETT. 

Such  a  career  implies  the  most  assiduous  self-cul 
ture;  but  it  was  a  culture  free  from  the  fault  of 
intellectual  selfishness,  for  it  was  not  centred  in 
itself,  but  pursued  with  a  view  to  the  public  service; 
and  the  thirst  for  acquisition  was  not  stronger  than 
the  ardor  for  communication.  Such  a  career  also 
implies  a  constant  state  of  preparation  for  public 
duties ;  but  only  by  those  whose  ambition  is  to  get 
office,  rather  than  to  get  qualified  for  office,  will  this 
peculiarity  be  sneeringly  imputed  to  a  love  of  dis- 
play. Still,  the  vast  publicity  which  such  a  career 
rendered  inevitable  would  have  developed  in  him 
some  of  the  malignant,  or  some  of  the  frivolous,  vices 
of  public  life,  had  it  not  been  that  a  fine  modesty 
tempered  his  constant  sense  of  personal  efficiency, — 
had  it  not  been  that  a  certain  shyness  at  the  core 
of  his  being  made  it  impossible  that  his  self-reliance 
should  rush  rudely  out  in  any  of  the  brazen  forms 
of  self-assertion.  And  this  brings  me  back  to  that 
essential  gentlemanliness  of  nature,  which  penetrated 
every  faculty,  and  lent  its  tone  to  every  expression, 
of  our  departed  President.  This  gave  hira  a  most 
sensitive  regard  for  the  rights  and  feelings  of  others, 
and  this  made  him  instinctively  expect  the  same 
regard  for  his  own.  He  guarded  with  an  almost 
jealous   vigilance    the   reserves   of   his    individuality, 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  249 

and  resented  all  uncouth  or  unwarranted  intrusion 
into  these  sanctuaries  which  his  dignity  shielded, 
with  a  feeling  of  grieved  surprise.  In  his  wide  con- 
verse wath  men,  even  in  the  contentions  of  party, 
his  mind  ever  moved  in  a  certain  ideal  region  of 
mutual  courtesy  and  respect.  It  was  to  be  antici 
pated;  that,  in  the  rough  game  of  politics,  where 
blows  are  commonly  given  and  received  with  equal 
carelessness,  and  where  mutual  charges  of  dishonesty 
are  both  expected  and  unheeded,  such  a  nature  as 
Mr.  Everett's  should  sometimes  suffer  exquisite  pain ; 
that  his  nerves  should  quiver  in  impatient  disgust  of 
such  odious  publicity ;  that  he  should  be  tempted  at 
times  to  feel  that  the  inconsiderate  assailers  of  his 
character  —  p^ 

**  Made  it  seem  more  sweet  to  b^/    >-v  -O^   /^ 

The  little  life  of  bank  and  Vrier,       ^y"  >;^ 
The  bird  that  pipes  his  lone  desire^  ^A* 

And  dies  unheard  within  his  tree,  '^-(J[  /    ^  *^^  J 

"Than  he  who  warbles  long  and  loud,  //  \ 

And  drops  at  Glory's  temple-gates  ; 
For  whom  the  carrion -vulture  waits 
•  To  tear  his  heart  before  the  crowd!  '* 

In   this   sensitiveness,   refinement,  and   courtesy   of 
nature,   in   this    chivalrous    respect    for   other    minds 
and   tenderness   for   other   hearts,  is  to  be  found  t^o 
II* 


250  EDWARD   EVERETT. 

peculiarity  of  his  oratory.  He  was  the  last  great 
master  of  persuasive  eloquence.  The  circumstances 
of  the  time  have  given  to  our  public  speaking  an 
aggressive  and  denouncing  character,  and  invective 
has  contemptuously  cast  persuasion  aside,  and  almost 
reduced  it  to  the  condition  of  one  of  the  lost  arts. 
This  is  undoubtedly  a  great  evil,  for  invective  com- 
monly dispenses  with  insight,  is  impotent  to  interpret 
what  it  assails,  and  fits  the  tongue  of  mediocrity  as 
readily  as  that  of  genius.  It  is  true  that  the  might- 
iest exemplars  of  eloquence  have  been  those  who 
have  wielded  this  most  terrific  weapon  in  the  armory 
of  the  orator  with  the  most  overwhelming  effect. 
Demosthenes,  Chatham,  Burke,  Mirabeau,  men  of 
vivid  minds,  hot  hearts,  and  audacious  wills,  have 
made  themselves  the  terror  of  the  assemblies  they 
ruled,  by  their  power  of  uttering  those  brief  and 
dreadful  invectives,  which  "appall  the  guilty  and 
make  bold  the  free,"  —  which  come  like  the  light- 
ning, irradiating  for  an  instant  what  in  an  instant 
they  blast.  Perhaps  the  noblest  spectacle  in  the 
annals  of  eloquence  is  that  in  which  the  mute  rage 
and  despair  of  a  hundred  millions  of  Asiatics  found, 
in  the  assembly  responsible  for  their  oppression,  fiery 
utterance  from  the  intrepid  lips  of  Burke.  But  such 
men   are    rightly    examples   only   to   their   peers ;    a 


EDWARD   EVERETT.  251 

certain  autocracy  of  nature  is  the  animating  prin- 
ciple of  their  genius ;  and,  when  they  are  copied  sim- 
ply by  the  tongue,  they  are  likely  to  produce  shrews 
rather  than  sages.  Mr.  Everett  followed  the  bent 
of  his  character  and  the  law  of  his  mind  when  he 
aimed  to  enter  into  genial  relations  with  his  auditors, 
and  to  associate  the  reception  of  his  views  with  a 
quickening  of  their  better  feelings,  and  an  addition  to 
their  self-respect.  Mount  Vernon,  the  poor  of  East 
Tennessee,  the  poor  of  Savannah,  attest  that  his 
greatest  triumphs  were  those  of  persuasion.  And  in 
recalling  the  tones  of  that  melodious  voice,  whose 
words  were  thus  works,  one  is  tempted  to  think 
that  Force,  in  eloquence, '  is  the  mailed  giant  of  the 
feudal  age,  who,  assailing  under  a  storm  of  missiles 
the  fortress  of  his  adversary,  makes  the  tough  gates 
shiver  under  the  furiously  rapid  strokes  of  his  battle- 
axe,  and  enters  as  a  victor ;  while  Persuasion,  "  with 
his  garland  and  singing  robes  about  him,"  speaks 
the  magical  word  which  makes  the  gates  fly  open  of 
their  own  accord,  and  enters  as  a  guest. 

It  is  but  just,  gentlemen,  that  our  lamented  Presi- 
dent, the  source  of  so  many  eulogies,  should  now  be 
their  theme ;  that  his  joy  in  recognizing  eminency 
in   others    should    be    met   b}^    a   glad    and    universal 


252  EDWARD   EVERETT. 

recognition  of  it  in  himself.  And,  certainly,  that 
spotless  private  and  distinguished  public  life  could 
have  closed  at  no  period  when  the  heart  of  the 
whole  loyal  nation  was  more  eager  to  admire  the 
genius  of  the  orator,  and  sound  the  praises  of  the  pa- 
triot, and  land  the  virtues  of  the  man,  than  on  the 
day  when  his  mortal  frame,  beautiful  in  life,  and 
beautiful  in  death,  was  followed  by  that  long  pro- 
cession of  bereaved  citizens,  through  those  mourning 
streets,  to  that  consecrated  gravel 


X. 

THOMAS    STARR    KING.* 

I  CANNOT  doubt  that  all  of  you,  friends  and 
parishioners  of  Thomas  Starr  King,  have  felt 
how  difficult  it  is  to  speak  in  detail  of  the  qualities 
of  him,  the  mere  mention  of  whose  name  so  quickly 
brings  up  his  presence  in  all  its  gracious  and  genial 
power,  and  his  nature  in  all  its  exquisite  harmony. 
He  comes  to  us  always  as  a  person,  and  not  as  an 
assemblage  of  qualities ;  and  however  precious  may 
be  the  memory  of  particular  traits  of  mind  or  disposi- 
tion, they  refuse  to  be  described  in  general  terms, 
but  are  all  felt  to  be  excellent  and  lovable,  because 
expressive  of  him.  Others  may  attract  us  through 
the  splendor  of  some  special  faculty,  or  the  eminency 
of  some  special  virtue,  but  in  his  case  it  is  the  whole 
individual  we  admire  and  love,  and  the  faculty  takes 
its  peculiar  character,  the  virtue  acquires  its  subtile 
charm,    because    considered    as    an  outgrowth   of  the 

*  Address  at  the  Memorial  Service  at  Hollis  Street  Church,  Bc» 
ton,  on  Snnday  evening,  April  3,  1864. 


254  THOMAS   STARR   KING. 

beautiful,  beneficent,  and  bounteous  nature   in  which 
it  had  its  root. 

And  here,  I  think,  we  touch  the  source  of  his  in- 
fluence and  the  secret  of  his  power,  as  friend,  pastor, 
preacher,  writer,  patriot,  and  —  let  me  add  —  states- 
man. He  had  the  rare  felicity,  in  everything  he  said 
and  did,  of  communicating  himself,  —  the  most  pre- 
cious thing  he  could  bestow ;  and  he  so  bound  others 
to  him  by  this  occupation  of  their  hearts,  that  to  love 
him  was  to  love  a  second  self.  This  communication 
was  as  unmistakable  in  his  lightest  talk  with  a 
chance  companion,  as  in  that  strong  hold  on  masses 
of  men,  and  power  of  lifting  them  up  to  the  height 
of  his  own  thought  and  purpose,  which,  in  the  case 
of  California,  will  give  his  name  a  position  among 
the  moral  founders  of  states.  Everybody  he  met  he 
unconsciously  enriched ;  everywhere  he  went  he  in- 
stinctively organized.  Meanness,  envy,  malice,  big- 
otry, avarice,  hatred,  low  views  of  public  and  private 
duty,  all  bad  passions  and  paltry  expediencies,  slunk 
away  abashed  from  every  mind  which  felt  the  light 
and  heat  of  that  sun-like  nature,  stealing  or  stream- 
ing into  it.  Such  evil  spirits  could  not  live  in  such 
a  rebuking  presence,  whether  it  came  in  the  form 
of  wit,  or  tenderness,  or  argument,  or  admonition,  or 
exhilarating  appeal,  or  soul-animating  eloquence,     Ev- 


THOMAS   STARR   KING.  255 

erybody  was  more  generous  from  contact  with  that 
radiating  beneficence ;  everybody  caught  the  contagion 
of  that  cheerful  spirit  of  humanity;  everybody  feU 
grateful  to  that  genial  exorcist,  who  drove  the  devils 
of  selfishness  and  pride  from  the  heart,  and  softly 
ensconced  himself  in  their  vacated  seats.  The  won- 
der is,  not  that  he  raised  so  much  for  benevolent 
purposes,  but  that  he  did  not  make  a  complete  sweep 
of  all  the  pockets  which  opened  so  obediently  to  his 
winning  appeal.  Rights  of  property,  however  jeal- 
ously guarded  against  others,  were  felt  to  be  imper- 
tinent towards  him ;  his  presence  outvalued  everything 
in  the  room  he  gladdened  with  his  beaming  face; 
people  were  pleasingly  tormented  with  a  desire  to 
give  him  something;  for  giving  was  so  emphatically 
the  law  of  his  own  being,  he  was  so  joyously  disin- 
terested himself,  that,  in  his  company,  avarice  itself 
saw  the  ridiculous  incongruity  of  its  greed,  and,  with 
a  grim  smile,  suffered  its  clutch  on  its  cherished 
hoards  to  relax. 

And  this  thorough  good  nature  had  nothing  of  the 
weakness,  nothing  of  the  cant,  nothing  of  the  fear  of 
giving  offence,  nothing  of  the  self-consciousness,  noth 
ing  of  the  bending  and  begging  air  of  professional 
benevolence,  but  was  as  erect  and  resolute  as  it  was 
wholesome  and  sweet.     It  seemed   the   effect  of  the 


256  THOMAS   STARR   KING. 

native  vigor  as  well  as  the  native  kindliness  of  his 
cordial  and  opulent  soul.  It  never  cloyed  with  its 
amiability.  It  did  not  insult  the  poor  with  conde- 
scension, or  court  the  rich  with  servility,  but  took  its 
place  on  an  easy  equality  and  fraternity  with  all, 
without  the  pretence  of  being  the  inferior  of  any. 
While  he  was  too  manly  to  ape  humility,  the  mere 
idea  of  setting  himself  up  as  "a  superior  being" 
would  have  drawn  from  him  one  of  those  bursts  of 
uncontrollable  merriment,  happy  as  childhood's  and 
as  innocent,  which  will  linger  in  the  ears  of  friends 
who  often  heard  that  glad  music,  until  the  grave 
closes  over  them  as  it  has  over  him. 

The  expression  of  this  nature  through  the  intellect 
was  as  free  from  obstruction  as  through  morals  and 
manners.  His  mind,  like  his  heart,  was  open  on  all 
sides.  Clear,  bright,  eager,  rapid,  and  joyous;  with 
observation,  memory,  reason,  imagination,  in  full  play ; 
with  a  glance  quick  to  detect  the  ludicrous  as  well 
as  the  beautiful ;  and  with  an  analogical  power,  both 
in  the  region  of  fancy  and  understanding,  of  remark- 
able vivacity  and  brilliancy;  his  intellect  early  fast- 
ened on  facts  and  on  principles  with  the  delight  of 
impulse  rather  than  the  effort  of  attention  and  will. 
In  swiftness  and  exactness  of  perception,  both  of 
ideas  and  of  their  relations,  he  was   a   marvel  from 


THOMAS   STARR   KING.  257 

his  boyhood.  Grasping  with  such  ease,  and  assimi- 
lating with  such  readiness,  the  nutriment  of  thought, 
he  made  mind  faster  than  others  receive  impressions. 
His  faculties  palpably  grew  day  by  day,  increasing 
their  force  and  enlarging  their  scope  with  every  fresh 
and  new  perception  of  nature  and  books  and  men. 
He  tasted  continually  the  deep  joy  of  constant  men- 
tal activity.  Who  shall  measure  the  happiness  of 
that  exhilarating  sense  of  daily  increase  of  knowl- 
edge and  development  of  power  ?  —  the  sweet  sur- 
prise of  swift-springing  thoughts  from  never-failing 
fountains,  —  the  glow  and  elation  of  soul  as  objects 
poured  in  from  without,  and  ideas  streamed  out  from 
within!  His  mind,  as  independent  as  it  was  recep- 
tive, and  as  free  from  self-distrust  as  from  presump- 
tion, never  lost  its  balance  as  it  sensitively  quivered 
under  the  various  knowledge  that  went  thronging 
into  it;  for  there  was  the  judgment  to  dispose  as 
well  as  the  passion  to  know,  and  the  sacred  hunger 
for  new  truth  and  beauty  never  degenerated  into 
that  ignoble  gluttony  which  paralyzes  the  action  of 
the  mind  it  overfereds. 

There  is  something  glorious  in  the  contemplation 
of  a  youth  passed  in  such  constant,  such  happy,  such 
self-rewarding  toil.  He  had  a  natural  aptitude  for 
large  ideas  and   deep   sentiments.     His   mind  caught 

Q 


258  THOMAS   STARR   KING. 

at  laws  immersed  in  bewildering  details,  —  darted  to 
the  salient  points  and  delved  to  the  central  princi- 
ples of  controverted  questions,  —  and  absorbed  systems 
of  philosophy  as  hilawously  as  others  devour  story- 
books. The  dauntless  boy  grappled  with  such 
themes  as  Plato  and  Goethe,  and  wrote  about  them 
with  a  prematureness  of  scholarship,  a  delicacy  of 
discernment,  a  sweet,  innocent  combination  of  confi- 
dence and  diffidence,  which  were  inexpressibly  charm- 
ing. Throughout  his  career,  in  sermon  and  in 
lecture,  this  strong  tendency  to  view  everything 
in  its  principles  was  always  prominent;  and  as  a 
popularizer  of  ideas  removed  from  ordinary  appre- 
hension,—  secreted,  indeed,  from  general  view  in 
the  jargon  of  metaphysics,  —  he  was,  perhaps,  with- 
out an  equal  in  the  country. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  say  w^hat  this  mind  might 
not  have  grown  to  be,  had  not  the  drain  on  its  en- 
ergies begun  almost  as  early  as  the  unfolding  of  its 
faculties,  —  had  not  the  dissipation  of  power  nearly 
kept  pace  with  its  accumulation.  His  time,  t>ilent, 
and  sympathies  were  the  property  of  all  they  de- 
lighted and  benefited.  The  public  seized  on  him  at 
an  early  age,  and  did  not  loosen  its  grasp  until 
within  a  few  days  of  his  death.  His  parish  was  not 
confined  to  this  society,  but  covered  the  ever-enlarg- 


THOMAS   STARR   KING.  259 

ing  circle  of  his  acquaintances  and  audiences.  The 
demands,  accordingly,  on  that  fertile  brain  and  boun- 
teous heart  were  constant  and  endless.  We  were 
always  after  him  to  write,  to  preach,  to  lecture,  to 
converse ;  we  plotted  lovingly  against  his  leisure ; 
and  as  long  as  there  was  a  bit  of  life  in  him,  we 
claimed  it  with  all  the  indiscriminate  eagerness  of 
exacting  affection.  As  soon  as  a  thought  sprouted 
in  his  head,  we  insisted  on  having  it ;  and  we  were 
all  in  a  friendly  conspiracy  to  prevent  his  exercise 
of  that  patient,  concentrated,  uninterrupted  thinking, 
which  conducts  to  the  heights  of  intellectual  power. 

Perhaps  his  elastic  mind  might  have  stood  this 
drain ;  but  the  mind  is  braced  by  the  emotional  forces 
which  underlie  it ;  and  it  was  on  these  that  his 
friends  delighted  to  feed.  His  sympathetic  nature 
attracted  towards  him  the  craving  for  sympathy  in 
others;  and  nothing  draws  more  on  the  very  sources 
of  vitality,  mental  and  moral,  than  this  assumption 
of  the  sorrows,  disappointments,,  heart-breaks,  and  mis- 
eries of  others,  this  incessant  giving  out  of  the  very 
capital  and  reserve  fund  of  existence,  to  meet  the 
demands  for  sympathy.  I  have  sometimes  seen  him 
physically  and  morally  fatigued  and  exhausted  from 
this  over-exertion  of  brain  and  heart,  and  have  won- 
dered why,  if  each  found  it  so  hard  to  bear  his  own 


260  THOMAS   STARR   KING. 

burdens  in  silence,  we  did  not  consider  the  cruelty 
of  casting  the  burdens  of  all,  in  one  mountainous 
load,  upon  him. 

When  we  remember  this  immense  readiness  to  give, 
this  admission  of  the  claims  of  misfortune  and  trou- 
ble to  take  out  patent  rights  on  his  time  and  sym- 
pathy, it  is  astonishing  how  much,  intellectually,  he 
achieved.  This  was  owing  not  more  to  the  fine  qual- 
ity of  his  intellect  than  to  its  mode  of  action,  for 
deep  down  in  the  very  centre  of  his  being  was  the 
element  of  beauty,  and  this  unceasingly  strove  to 
mould  all  he  thought  and  did  into  its  own  likeness. 
It  was  not  only  expressed  in  fancy  and  imagination, 
in  the  richness  of  his  imagery  and  the  cadence  of  his 
periods,  and  in  that  peculiar  combination  of  softness 
and  fire  which  lent  to  his  eloquence  its  persuasive 
power,  but  it  gave  luminousness  to  his  arrangement, 
method  to  his  scholarship,  consecutiveness  to  his  ar- 
gumentation, symmetry  to  his  moral  life.  It  abridged 
as  well  as  decorated  his  work.  Things  that  went  into 
his  mind  huddled  and  confused,  hastened  to  fall  into 
their  right  relations,  and  harmoniously  adjust  them- 
selves to  some  definite  plan  and  purpose,  as  soon  as 
they  felt  the  disposing  touch  of  that  artistic  intelli- 
gence, to  which  all  disorder  was  unbecoming  as  well 
as  unsystematic.     This  quality  of  beauty,  an  elemeii* 


X 


THOMAS   STARR  KING.  261 

of  his  character  as  well  as  a  shaping  faculty  of  his 
mind,  demanded  symmetry  in  all  things,  —  symmetry 
of  form  in  things  imaginative,  symmetry  of  law  in 
things  intellectual,  symmetry  of  life  in  things  moral. 
The  besetting  sins  of  tlfe  head  and  the  heart  ap- 
peared to  him  uncomely  as  well  as  wrong,  and  he 
avoided  them  through  an  instinctive  love  of  the  good 
and  the  fair.  As  much  of  our  intellectual  and  moral 
effort  is  spent  in  removing  obstacles  and  overcoming 
temptations,  and  as  from  this  weary  work  he  was  in 
a  great  measure  spared,  the  time  saved  was  so  many 
years  added  to  his  life. 

But  it  must  be  added,  that  this  pervading  senti- 
ment of  the  beautiful  did  not  make  him  one  of  those 
bigots  of  the  ideal,  whom  the  deformities  of  practical 
life  keep  in  a  morbid  state  of  constant  moral  or  men- 
tal irritation.  From  the  fret  of  this  fine  fanaticism, 
which  always  weakens  the  character  it  seemingly 
adorns,  he  was  preserved  by  his  exquisite,  his  deli- 
cious sense  of  the  ludicrous.  The  deformed,  when 
his  eye  sparkled  upon  it,  hastened  to  change  into  the 
grotesque  ;  it  acquired,  indeed,  a  quaint  beauty  of  its 
own  ;  it  irritated,  not  his  nerves,  but  his  risibilities  ; 
it  slid  into  his  loving  heart,  —  always  open  to  things 
human,  —  and  was  there  nursed  and  cherished  on  the 
sunniest    mirth    and    laughter    that    humorous    object 


262  THOMAS   STARR   KING. 

ever  fed  upon.  For  the  morally  deformed  his  wholo 
being  had  an  instinctive  repugnance ;  but  when  him- 
self the  mark  at  which  meanness  or  malice  aimed,  he 
always  seemed  to  me  rather  amused  than  exasper- 
ated. The  oddity  of  the  meanness,  the  strange  futility 
of  the  malice,  affected  him  like  a  practical  joke ; 
quick  as  lightning  to  detect  the  base  thing,  he  still 
dismissed  it  laughingly  from  his  mind,  with  hardly 
the  appearance  of  having  suffered  wrong,  and  certain- 
ly without  any  desire  or  intention  to  retaliate.  No 
wound  could  fester  in  that  humane  and  healthy  soul. 
The  love  of  the  beautiful,  to  which  I  have  referred 
as  so  strong  an  element  in  his  nature,  was,  as  it  re- 
gards natural  scenery,  most  completely  embodied  in 
his  eloquent  book  on  the  White  Hills,  —  which  will 
look  the  sadder  to  us  now  that  the  loving  chronicler 
of  their  varying  aspects  of  grandeur  and  grace,  who 
has  associated  his  own  name  with  every  valley  and 
peak,  will  visit  them  no  more ;  but  when  his  ser- 
mons and  lectures  are  published,  it  will  be  seen  how 
closely  the  beautiful  in  nature  was  linked  in  his 
mind  with  the  beautiful  in  thought,  in  character,  and 
in  action.  He  loved  his  theological  calling,  and  it 
was  his  ambition  to  pay  the  debt  which  every  able 
man  is  said  to  owe  his  profession,  namely,  to  contrib* 
ute   some  work   of  permanent  value  to  its  literature. 


THOMAS   STARR  KING.  263 

Had  he  lived,  he  would,  I  think,  have  written  the 
most  original,  the  most  interpretative,  and  the  most 
attractive  of  all  books  on  the  life,  character,^  and 
epistles  of  the  Apostle  Paul.  But  it  was  ordered 
that  his  life  should  be  chiefly  spent  in  direct  action 
on  men  through  speech  and  personal  influence ;  and 
theology  may  well  wait  for  the  book,  when  human- 
ity had  such  pressing  need  for  the  man. 

I  hardly  know  how  to  speak  of  his  moral  and 
spiritual  qualities;  for,  noble  as  they  were,  they  were 
not  detached  from  his  mind,  but  pervaded  it.  Both 
as  a  thinker  and  as  a  reformer  he  was  brave  almost 
to  audacity;  but  his  courage  was  tempered  by  an  ad- 
mirable discretion  and  sense  of  the  becoming,  and 
his  quick  self-recovery  from  a  mistake  or  error  was 
not  one  of  the  least  of  his  gifts.  He  seemed  to  have 
no  fear,  not  even  the  subtlest  form  which  fear  as- 
sumes in  our  day,  —  the  fear  of  being  thought  afraid. 
No  supercilious  taunt,  or  imputation  of  timidity,  could 
sting  him  into  going  further  in  liberal  theology  and 
reforming  politics  than  his  own  intelligence  and  con- 
science carried  him.  Malignity  was  a  spiritual  vice 
of  which  I  have  sometimes  doubted  if  he  had  even 
the  mental  perception.  His  charity  and  toleration 
were  as  wide  as  his  knowledge  of  men.  Controversy 
was  a  gymnastic  in  which  he  delighted  to  brace  his 


264  THOMAS   STARR   KING. 

faculties,  but  he  could  look  at  disputed  questions 
from  the  point  of  view  of  his  opponents,  discrimi- 
nate between  dogmas  and  the  holders  of  them,  and 
assail  opinions  without  unwittingly  defaming  charac- 
ter. "Speaking  the  truth  in  love,"  was  a  text  which 
he  seemed  born  to  illustrate ;  and  if,  as  a  theologian, 
he  did  not  perceive  the  moral  evil  of  the  world  in 
all  its  ghastliness,  it  was  because  its  most  hateful 
forms  stole  away  when  he  appeared,  and,  addressing 
what  was  good  in  men,  the  good  went  gladly  out 
to  him  in  return.  His  piety,  pure,  deep,  tender,  se- 
rene, and  warm,  took  hold  of  the  positive  principles 
of  light  and  beneficence,  not  of  the  negative  ones  of 
darkness  and  depravity,  and  —  himself  a  child  of  the 
light  —  he  preached  the  religion  of  spiritual  joy. 

The  rarity  of  such  a  character,  and  the  wide  in- 
fluence it  was  calculated  to  exert  in  virtue  of  its 
native  qualities,  were  only  seen  in  all  their  beauty 
and  might  when  he  went  from  us  to  California,  and 
we  looked  at  him  from  afar.  In  four  years  he  con- 
densed the  work  of  forty.  The  very  genius  of  or- 
ganization seemed  to  wait  upon  his  step^.  Men 
flocked  to  him  as  to  a  natural  benefactor.  As  a 
clergyman,  he  built  up  the  strongest  church  in  the 
State,  with  an  income  the  largest  of  any  in  the  land. 
As  a  philanthropist,  he  raised  for  the  most  beneficent 


THOMAS   STARR   KING.  265 

ot  all  charities  the  most  munificent  of  all  subscrip- 
tions. As  a  patriotic  Christian  statesman,  he  includ- 
ed the  real  elements  of  power  in  the  community, 
took  the  people  out  of  the  hands  of  disloyal  politi- 
cians, lifted  them  up  to  the  level  of  his  own  ardent 
soul,  and  not  only  saved  the  State  to  the  Union,  but 
imprinted  his  own  generous  and  magnanimous  spirit 
on  its  forming  life.  In  the  full  speed  of  this  victo- 
rious career,  with  the  blessings  of  a  nation  raining 
upon  him,  he  was  arrested  by  death,  —  the  rich  and 
abounding  life  suddenly  summoned  to  the  Source  of 
Life,  and  "  happy  to  go."  Human  willingness  could 
hardly  answer  the  Divine  Will  with  more  perfect 
submission ;  and  it  is  not  for  us,  who  remember  with 
what  a  shock  of  inexpressible  grief  and  pain  that  un- 
expected departure  smote  the  hearts  of  kindred  and 
friends,  but  who  also  remember  how  often  from  this 
pulpit,  and  from  his  lips,  we  have  been  taught  that 
the  purpose  of  Providence  in  sending  death  is  always 
beneficent,  to  doubt  that  the  stroke,  so  heavy  to  us, 
BO  "  happy "  to  him,  was  prompted  by  wisdom  and 
love.  Bowing  before  that  transcendent  mystery,  and 
not  seeking  to  penetrate  it,  let  us  find  consolation  in 
the  faith  that  this  child  of  the  light  has  been  caught 
up  into  the  Light  Ineffable,  —  that  this  preacher  of  the 
religion  of  joy  has  entered  into  the  joy  of  his  Lord. 
12 


/lTb r a  U  V 

UNIVERSITY  OF 


CALIFORNIA 


XL 

AGASSIZ.* 


NO  thoughtful  person  can  have  watched  the  ten- 
dencies of  scientific  thinking,  for  the  last  twenty 
or  thirty  years,  without  being  impressed  with  its  bear- 
ings on  Natural  Theology  and  the  Philosophy  of  the 
Mind.  A  large  class  of  scientific  men,  eminent  for 
their  powers  of  observation  and  understanding,  but 
deficient  in  the  more  subtile  and  profound  elements 
of  mind  which  mark  the  philosophic  thinker,  have 
undoubtedly  evinced  in  their  speculations  a  strong 
leaning  to  Materialism,  in  what  may  be  considered 
its  worst  form,  namely,  the  doctrine  that  organized 
beings  owe  their  ^  origin  to  merely  physical  agents. 
The  intellectual  defect  of  these  savans  is  a  seeming 
incapacity  to  comprehend,  appreciate,  and  feel  the 
necessity  of  the  fertile  idea  of  Cause,  For  this  they 
substitute  the  abstraction  of  Law,  without  a  distinct 
impressjpn  of  the  meaning  of  the  term,  for  law  im- 
plies a  power  that  legislates.  It  is  no  cause,  but 
*  Essay  on  Classification,  1857. 


AGASSIZ.  267 

dnly  the  mode  in  which  a  cause  operates ;  "  not  action, 
but  a  rule  of  action."  The  distinguishing  character- 
istic of  a  mind  of  the  second  class  is  its  content 
with  that  explanation  of  a  problem  which  is  one  or 
two  removes  from  its  centre  and  heart.  It  has  no 
fine,  detecting  sense  of  the  real  thing  to  be  investi- 
gated, explained,  or  affirmed.  Too  sceptical  to  admit 
the  validity  of  that  mental  instinct,  that  gravitation  to 
the  truth,  which  conducts  to  solid  and  intelligent  be- 
lief, they  are  credulous  enough  in  giving  omnipotence 
to  the  lifeless  notion  of  law,  if  by  so  doing  they  can 
escape  from  the  living  conception  of  cause.  The  in- 
troduction of  the  idea  of  God  is  to  them  not  only  a 
fallacy  but  an  affront,  and  throws  them  into  a  state 
of  intellectual  irritation  which  is  not  favorable  to  the 
fair  consideration  of  the  facts  and  arguments  which 
make  such  an  introduction  necessary. 

But  the  defect  is  not  merely  intellectual.  It  is 
also  personal,  and  has  one  of  its  roots  in  the  most 
refined  form  of  vanity  and  pride.  Everybody  is 
familiar  with  the  subjectivity  and  self-assertion  of 
poets.  We  are  not  surprised  when  Dante  makes 
himself  the  lord  of  the  next  wol'ld,  and  plunges  his 
enemies  into  hell,  with  the  full  faith  that  there  can 
be  no  disagreement  between  the  Deity  and  himself 
as  to  their  guilt   or   mode  of  punishment     We   are 


■ 


268  AGASSIZ. 

not  surprised  when  Byron  colors  all  nature  with  the 
hues  of  his  own  spirit,  forces  natural  objects  into 
symbols  of  his  own  caprices  of  disgust  or  desperation, 
and  views  mankind  as  limited  to  Byron-kind.  But 
we  are  hardly  prepared  to  suspect  that  men  engaged 
in  a  scientific  scrutiny  of  material  existences  ever 
project  their  own  nature  on  what  they  observe,  or 
are  tempted  to  make  their  own  minds  the  measure 
of  things.  Yet  this  is,  in  many  cases,  the  truth.  A 
clear  objective  perception  of  facts,  and  the  laws  and 
principles  which  inhere  in  facts,  is  a  moral,  no  less 
than  a  mental  quality.  It  implies  a  purification  of 
the  character  from  egotism  and  pride  of  opinion,  a 
rare  union  of  humility  of  feeling  with  audacity  of 
thought,  and,  above  all,  the  triumph  of  a  sincere  love 
of  objective  truth  over  the  desire  to  exalt  a  subjec- 
tive self.  The  moment  a  scientific  man  begins  to 
bluster  about  his  discoveries,  and  call  them  "  my 
truth,"  it  is  all  over  with  him.  He  has  given 
pledges  to  the  strongest  of  all  selfish  principles  that 
he  will  see  Nature  hereafter  only  as  Nature  squares 
with  his  theory,  and  feeds  his  self-importance.  Es- 
pecially, if  he  calls'  his  notion  Law,  and  makes  law 
an  ultimate,  beyond  which  the  human  reason  cannot 
go,  he  feels  as  if  he  were  the  creator  of  that  which 
he  has,   perhaps,  only   imperfectly  observed.     In   his 


AGASSIZ.  269 

sage  opinion  it  is  the  folly  of  superstition  to  admit 
the  necessity  of  God,  but  he  sees  no  impropriety 
in  the  ap.)theosis  of  his  darling  notion ;  and,  accord- 
ingly, he  quietly  expels  God  from  the  universe,  and 
puts  himself  in  His  place.  He  does  it  as  unmistak- 
ably, though  not  as  coarsely  and  obviously,  as  the 
religious  fanatic,  who  projects  a  deity  from  his  malig- 
nant passions,  and  then  insists  on  his  being  worshipped 
by  all  mankind.  The  temptation  to  substitute  self 
—  either  in  its  emotional,  or  imaginative,  or  reason- 
ing expression  —  for  objective  truth  is  a  temptation 
which  is  not  confined  to  any  one  class  of  powerful 
natures,  but  operates  on  all ;  and  men  of  science 
have  their  full  share  of  the  infirmity. 

We  have  been  led  into  these  remarks  by  reading 
the  long  introductory  Essay  on  Classification,  in  the 
first  volume  of  Mr.  Agassiz's  "  Contributions  to  the 
Natural  History  of  North  America,"  —  a  work  of 
the  first  importance,  if  we  merely  consider  its  posi- 
tive additions  to  our  knowledge  of  Natural  History; 
but  especially  interesting  to  us  for  the  felicity  and 
power  with  which  it  deals-  with  the  higher  philoso- 
phy of  the  science,  and  the  superiority  of  the  author 
to  the  besetting  mental  sins  we  have  indicated.  In 
the  "Essay  on  Classification,"  the  first  of  living  nat- 
uralists proves  himself  also  to  be  among  the  first  of 


270  AGASSIZ. 

living  thinkers  in  the  department  of  natural  theology. 
Its  publication  we  cannot  but  think  to  be  no  mere . 
incident  in  the  progress  of  science,  but  an  event. 
It  would  seem  to  impose  on  every  naturalist  the 
duty  of  agreeing  with  Mr.  Agassiz  or  of  refuting 
him.  No  man  of  any  scientific  reputation  can  here- 
after bring  forward  the  development  theory,  or  the 
theory  that  animal  life  can  be  produced  by  the  nat- 
ural operation  of  physical  agents,  or  the  theory  that 
God  is  an  obsolete  idea  in  science,  or  the  theory 
that  things  were  not  created  but  occurred,  without 
harmonizing  his  theory  with  Mr.  Agassiz's  facts,  and 
grappling  with  Mr.  Agassiz's  ideas.  The  essay  will 
.also  do  much  to  correct  the  anarchy  of  thouglit 
which  prevails  among  many  naturalists,  who,  being 
observers  rather  than  thinkers,  have  confused  notions 
of  the  real  problems  to  be  decided,  are  sometimes 
on  one  side  of  an  important  question,  sometimes  on 
another,  with  an  imperfect  comprehension  of  the  vital 
points  at  issue ;  and  who  need  nothing  so  much  as 
the  assistance  of  a  master-mind,  to  draw  a  definite 
line  between  the  two  opposing  systems,  and  to  indi- 
cate the  consequences  of  each. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  right  of  Mr.  Agas- 
eiz  to  speak  with  authority  on  the  philosophy  of  his 
science;  for  he  has  fairly  earned   the   right   to   speak 


AGASSIZ.  271 

by  labor,  by  study,  by  the  most  extensive   investiga- 
tions, by  patient  and  continuous  thought.     The  whole 
immense   subject   of  natural   history,  in  itself  and  in 
its   literature,  is   reflected   in    the    clear   and   compre- 
hensive   mirror   of  his   mind.     He    knows    facts,    and 
the    relations    of   facts,    so    thoroughly,    that    he    can 
wield  them  with  ease  as  elements  of  the  profoundest 
philosophical    reasoning.     The    breadth    of    his    view 
preserves  him  from  the  vice  of  detaching  classes  of 
facts    from    their    relations,    emphasizing    them    into 
undue    importance,    and    severing    the    fine    cord    of 
connection  which  gives   them   their   real   significance. 
By  the  instinct  of  his  intelligence  he  looks  at  every- 
thing, not  as  isolated,  but  as  related,  and  consequent- 
ly he  is  not  content  with  facts,  but  searches  for  the 
principles  which  give  coherence  to  facts.     As  an  ob- 
server, he  is  both  rapid  and  accurate.     He  possesses 
not  merely  the  talent  of  observation,  but  its  genius ; 
and  hence  his  ability  to  perform  the  enormous  task^ 
which    he    imposes    on    his    industry.     His    mind    is 
eminently  large,  sound,  fertile,  conscientious,  and  sa- 
gacious, quick   and  deep   in   its   insight,  wide   in   the 
range    of   its    argumentation,   capable    equally    of  the 
minutest  microscopic  scrutiny  and   the    broadest   gen- 
eralizations, independent  of  schools  and  systems,  and 
inspired  by  that  grand  and  ennobling   love  of  truth 


272  AGASsiz; 

which  is  serenely  superior  to  fear,  interest,  vanity, 
ambition,  or  the  desire  of  display.  In  the  operation 
of  his  mind  there  is  no  predominance  of  any  single 
power,  but  the  intellectual  action  of  what  we  feel  to 
be  a  powerful  nature.  When  he  observes,  his  whole 
mind  enters  into  the  act  of  observation,  just  as  when 
he  reasons,  his  whole  mind  enters  into  the  act  of 
reasoning.  This  unity  of  the  man  in  each  intellect- 
ual operation  gives  to  his  statements  and  arguments 
the  character  of  depositions  under  oath.  His  personal 
honor  is  pledged  for  his  accuracy,  and  his  works  are 
therefore  free  from  those  lies  of  the  brain  whic\ 
spring  from  narrow  thought,  confused  perceptions 
and  hasty  generalizations.  Though  in  decided  oppo- 
sition to  many  eminent  naturalists,  he,  in  common 
with  all  lovers  of  truth,  has  none  of  the  fretful  dis- 
putativeness  of  polemics ;  and  while  he  calmly  and 
clearly  controverts  antagonistic  theories,  he  exhibits 
nothing  of  the  disputatious  spirit. 

The  "  Essay  on  Classification,"  the  reading  of  which 
has  occasioned  these  general  observations  on  the  char- 
acteristics of  Mr.  Agassiz  as  a  scientific  thinker,  is 
addressed  to  all  minds  that  reflect,  and  not  merely 
to  the  professed  naturalist.  In  the  general  reader,  its 
perusal  will  be  likely  to  produce  something  of  that 
wonder  and   awe   which  his  first   introduction  to  the 


AGASSIZ.  273 

marvels  of  astronomy  infused  into  his  mind.  And 
first,  Mr.  Agassiz  takes  the  ground,  that  the  divisions 
of  the  animal  kingdom  according  to  type,  class,  or- 
der, family,  genus,  and  species  are  not  convenient 
devices  of  the  human  understanding  to  classify  its 
knowledge,  but  were  instituted  by  God  as  the  cate- 
gorit^s  of  His  thinking.  There  is  a  systematic  ar- 
rangement in  nature  which  science  did  not  invent, 
but  gradually  discovered.  The  terms  in  which  this 
arrangement  is  expressed  are  the  translation  into 
human  language  of  the  thoughts  of  the  Creator. 
The  plan  of  creation,  so  far  from  growing  out  of 
the  necessary  action  of  natural  laws,  betrays  in  ev- 
ery part,  to  the  profound  student,  the  signs  of  hav- 
ing been  the  free  conception  of  the  Divine  Intellect, 
matured  in  His  mind  before  it  was  manifested  in 
external  forms.  The  existence  of  a  plan  involves 
premeditation  prior  to  the  act  which  carried  the  plan 
into  execution ;  and  if,  through  all  the  various  stages 
of  the  physical  history  of  the  globe,  this  plan  of  an- 
imal creation  has  never  been  departed  from,  we  are 
compelled  to  see  in  it  the  marks  of  thought  and  fore- 
thought, of  intelligent  purpose  and  unity  of  design. 
Now  the  researches  of  Cuvier,  who  classified  animals 
according  to  their  structure,  and  of  Von  Baer,  who 
classified  them  according  to  their  development,  have 

12*  B 


274  AGASSIZ. 

shown  that  the  animal  kingdom  exhibits  four  pri- 
mary divisions,  the  representatives  of  which  are  or- 
ganized upon  four  different  plans  of  structure,  and 
grow  up  according  to  four  different  modes  of  devel- 
opment. As  regards  living  animals,  at  no  period  do 
the  types  pass  into  each  other.  The  type  of  each 
animal  is  defined  from  the  beginning,  and  controls 
the  whole  development.  The  embryo  of  the  verte- 
brate is  a  vertebrate  from  the  beginning,  and  does 
not  exhibit  at  any  time  a  correspondence  with  the 
invertebrates.  In  regard  to  extinct  species  the  same 
principle  holds  good.  Within  thirty  years  it  was  cus- 
tomary for  geologists  and  palaeontologists  to  assert 
that  the  lowest  animals  first  made  their  appearance 
on  the  earth,  and  that  these  were  followed  by  higher 
and  higher  types,  until  the  series  was  closed  by  man. 
Now  it  is  well  known  that  representatives  of  the 
four  types  of  animals  existed  simultaneously  in  the 
earliest  geological  periods.  All  naturalists  now  agree 
that  there  was  no  priority  in  time  of  the  appearance 
of  radiata,  mollusks,  and  articulata  ;  and  if  some  still 
contend  that  vertebrata  originated  later  than  the  oth- 
ers, it  is  still  conceded  that  they  appeared  before  the 
end  of  the  first  great  epoch  in  the  history  of  the 
globe.  It  is  curious  how  this  great  principle  of  type 
controls   the  animal   kingdom.     Many  facts,    at  first 


AGASSIZ.  275 

considered  favorable  to  the  notion  that  animal  life 
was  originated  by  the  physical  conditions  and  sur- 
roundings of  its  existence,  have  been  turned  against 
the  theory  by  bringing  in  this  fertile  idea.  Thus  the 
blind  fish  in  the  Mammoth  Cave  of  Kentucky  has 
been  cited  as  indicating  that  physical  conditions  de- 
termine the  absence  or  presence  of  organs.  But  the 
discovery  of  a  rudimentary  eye  in  this  fish  proves 
that,  in  its  creation,  the  plan  of  structure  of  the  type 
to  which  it  belongs  was  followed,  though  the  organ 
was  of  no  use.  Indeed,  the  connection  between  or- 
gans and  functions,  which  in  most  works  on  natural 
theology  is  emphasized  as  the  great  proof  of  causal 
and  intelligent  force,  is  not  universally  true.  Organs 
without  functions  are  among  the  ascertained  facts  of 
zoology.  The  whale  has  teeth  which  never  cut 
through  the  gum.  The  males  of  mammalia  have 
breasts  which  are  never  used.  Pinnated  animals 
have  fingers  which  are  never  moved.  Why  is  this? 
The  reason  is,  that  these  organs,  though  not  neces- 
sary to  the  mode  of  existence  of  the  animals,  are 
retained  because  they  relate  to  the  fundamental  char- 
acteristics of  their  class.  "  The  organ  remains,  not 
for  the  performance  of  a  function^  but  with  reference 
to  a  plan "  /  as  in  architecture  the  same  external 
combinations  which  mark  the  style  to  which  a  build- 


276  AGASSIZ. 

ing  belongs  are  often  retained  for  the  sake  of  sym* 
metry  and  harmony  of  proportion,  when  they  sen^o 
no  practical  object. 

Now  here  is  a  great  fact,  true  not  only  as  regards 
living  animals,  but  in  respect  to  fossil  species  of  for 
mer  geological  epochs,  which  carry  the  mind  back 
into  an  incalculable  remoteness  of  time,  —  the  fact, 
namely,  that  all  organized  beings  were  made  on  four 
different  plans  of  structure.  These  are  types,  ideas. 
The  question  is.  Can  we  discriminate  between  these 
types  and  the  classes  in  which  the  four  plans  of 
structure  are  carried  out  in  actual  organizations  ? 
If  we  can  thus  discriminate,  we  of  course  lift  the 
question  out  of  matter  into  mind.  We  pass  from 
organization  to  the  Thought  and  Will  that  organ- 
ized. In  all  matters  under  human  control  we  are 
accustomed  to  take  this  step.  At  whatever  point  we 
view  a  fact  or  event,  we  trace  it  back  through  all 
the  stages  of  its  progress  to  the  invisible  though 
which  contrived  it,  and  the  invisible  will  that  bade 
it  be.  We  never  hesitate,  when  we  discern  a  pla 
carried  practically  out  in  human  affairs,  to  give  the 
plan  a  previous  ideal  existence  in  the  mind  of  its 
human  originator.  If  we  should  reason  in  practical 
affairs,  as  some  naturalists  reason  in  regard  to  the 
origin  of  organized  beings,    we   should  insist  that  no 


AGASSIZ.  277 

one  had  the  logical  right  to  pass,  beyond  the  steam- 
engine,  which  is  a  plan  carried  out,  to  the  mind  of 
James  Watt,  where  it  previously  existed  in  idea. 

Now  Mr.  Agassiz  has  demonstrated  that  all  ani- 
mals, both  of  living  and  extinct  species,  which  have 
come  under  the  notice  of  naturalists,  exhibit  the 
marks  of  these  four  plans  of  structure,  and  of  no 
more,  liowever  infinitely  diversified  they  may  be  in 
their  details  of  structure.  The  number  of  existing 
species  is  at  least  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand, 
with  innumerable  living  representatives;  and  there  is 
every  reason  to  suppose  that  the  number  of  extinct 
species  is  at  least  as  great.  Thus,  from  the  begin- 
ning, through  geological  epochs  which  rival  in  time 
the  marvels  of  astronomy  in  space,  and  under  all  the 
physical  conditions  and  changes  of  the  planet,  we 
perceive  four  ideas  controlling  the  structure  of  all 
organized  beings.  Leaving  out  of  view  the  difiiculty 
of  supposing  that  physical  elements  should  possess 
creative  intelligence  to  originate  animal  life,  we  may 
still  ask,  without  profanity,  Where,  in  Heaven's  name, 
did  they  get  the  memory  ?  In  each  epoch  they 
would  have  been  compelled  to  create  anew,  for  the 
previous  animals  had  left  no  living  representative  to 
hint  the  secret  of  their  structure  to  the  wild  ele- 
mental philosophers  who  were  called  upon  to  extern 


278  AGASSIZ. 

porize  animal  life  after  the  old  plans.  They  would 
have  been  compelled  to  recollect  the  mode  in  which 
they  did  it  in  the  elder  time.  What  is  this  but  a 
misuse  of  terms,  —  a  wilful  naming  of  one  thmg  by 
the  appellation  of  another,  —  a  projection  of  qualities^ 
characteristic  of  intelligent  forces,  upon  forces  which 
are  unintelligent  and  necessitated? 

Mr.  Agassiz  therefore  insists  that  these  four  plans 
of  structure  correspond  to  four  ideas  in  the  Creator's 
mind,  which  are  independent  of  the  animal  forms  in 
which  they  are  carried  out.  It  is  impossible  for  us 
to  condense  the  facts  and  arguments  by  which,  in 
thirty-one  weighty  chapters,  he  proceeds  to  show  that, 
from  whatever  point  we  survey  animal  life,  we  are 
inevitably  led  to  a  Supreme  Personal  Intelligence 
as  its  cause  and  support,  —  to  an  intelligence  whose 
working  in  the  animal  creation  exhibits  "  thought, 
considerate  thought,  combining  power,  premeditation, 
prescience,  omniscience."  Throughout  this  portion  of 
his  essay  we  continually  feel  the  power  and  compre- 
hensiveness of  his  mind,  both  in  the  graceful  ease 
with  which  an  immense  weight  and  affluence  of 
knowledge  is  borne,  and  the  vigorous  felicity  with 
which  it  is  wielded  in  the  service  of  ideas.  There  is 
no  branch  of  his  subject  in  which  he  does  not  show 
himself  ihe  master  of  his  materials.     The  most  con 


AGASSIZ.  279 

fused  facts  fall  into  order  and  relation,  and  readily 
support  principles  they  were  at  first  supposed  to 
deny,  when  subjected  to  the  scrutiny  of  his  penetrat- 
ing intelligence.  His  chapters  on  the  simultaneous 
existence  of  the  most  diversified  types  under  identi- 
cal circumstances ;  on  the  repetition  of  identical  types 
under  the  most  diversified  circumstances ;  on  the  uni- 
ty of  plan  in  otherwise  highly  diversified  types;  on 
the  correspondence  in  the  details  of  structure  in  ani- 
mals otherwise  entirely  disconnected ;  on  the  various 
degrees  and  different  kinds  of  relationship  among  ani- 
mals ;  on  their  gradation  of  structure ;  their  range  of 
geographical  distribution ;  on  the  serial  connection  in 
structure  of  those  widely  scattered  on  the  globe's  sur- 
face; on  the  relation  between  their  size  and  struct- 
ure, and  between  their  size  and  the  mediums  in 
which  they  live ;  on  the  permanency  of  specific  pe- 
culiarities in  all  organized  beings ;  and  on  their  hab- 
its, metamorphoses,  duration  of  life,  succession,  stand- 
ing, rank,  and  development :  —  these  are  all  fertile  in 
original  thought  and  exact  observation,  and  all  swell 
the  grand  cumulative  argument  with  which  he  rigor- 
ously connects  organized  beings  with  their  Divine 
Source.  It  seems  to  us  that  he  does  not  leave  a 
loose  or  broken  link  in  the  whole  chain  of  his  rea- 
soning. 


280  AGASSIZ. 

The  second  portion  of  his  essay  is  devoted  to  a 
systematic  description  of  the  leading  groups  of  ex- 
isting animals,  as  a  foundation  for  a  natural  system 
of  classification,  and  the  third  portion  to  an  elaborate 
exposition  and  examination  of  the  principal  systems 
of  zoology  from  Aristotle  to  Von  Baer.  His  defini- 
tions of  the  divisions  of  what  he  calls  the  natural 
system  of  classification  are  clear  and  exact.  Branches 
or  types  are  characterized  by  the  plan  of  their  struct- 
ure ;  classes,  by  the  manner  in  which  that  plan  is 
executed,  as  far  as  ways  and  means  are  concerned ; 
orders,  by  the  degrees  of  complication  of  that  struct- 
ure ;  families,  by  their  form,  as  far  as  determined  by 
structure ;  genera,  by  the  details  of  the  .execution  in 
special  parts ;  and  species,  by  the  relations  of  indi- 
viduals to  one  another,  and  to  the  world  in  which 
they  live,  as  well  as  by  the  proportion  of  their  parts, 
their  ornamentation,  etc.  All  other  divisions  are  but 
limitations  of  these.  The  representatives  of  these 
divisions  are  perishable  individuals.  If  we  select  a 
living  animal,  we  find  that  it  has  in  its  structure  all 
the  marks  by  which  we  assign  it,  not  only  to  a  cer- 
tain species  and  genus,  but  to  an  order,  family,  class, 
and  type ;  and  this  classification  is  not  arbitrary,  a 
human  device  for  simplifying  our  knowledge,  but  the 
detection  in  the  object  itself  of  peculiarities  divinely 


AGASSIZ.  281 

impressed  on  its  structure.  Thus  in  the  animal  king- 
dom, God  himself  has  combined  unity  and  simplicity 
with  the  vastest  diversity  ;  and  the  study  of  Natural 
History  is  not  merely  the  contemplation  of  His  works, 
but  of  His  ideas  and  method,  —  a  study,  therefore,  in 
which  the  spirit  of  meekness  and  awe  can  be  united 
with  a  depth,  force,  daring,  and  amplitude  of  thought, 
compared  with  which  the  speculations  of  the  selfish 
and  sceptical  school  of  natural  philosophers  appear 
feeble,  and  petty,  and  pert.  The  greatness  of  a 
philosopher  is  to  be  measured  by  what  be  suggests 
and  aims  after,  as  well  as  by  what  he  discovers, 
and  he  never  seems  so  great  as  when  he  uses  his 
powers  in  attempting  to  follow  the  indications  in  na- 
ture of  a  Creative  Intelligence  infinitely  greater  than 
himself. 

In  conclusion,  we  may  say  that  Mr.  Agassiz's 
processes  and  results  are  curiously  contradictory  of 
the  dictum  of  that  self-chosen  legislator  of  science, 
Auguste  Comte.  We  have  been  assured,  over  and 
over  again,  by  the  champions  of  the  Philosophie  Post* 
tivey  that  Comte's  law  of  the  evolution  of  scientific 
thought  is  incontrovertible.  Every  branch  of  knowl- 
edge, according  to  this  law,  passes  through  tliree 
stages ;  first,  the  theological  or  supernatural,  in  which 
phenomena   are    referred    to   supernatural    agents    as 


282  AGASSIZ. 

their  causes,  the  principle  being  the  same  whether 
the  divine  source  of  things  is  sought  in  fetichism 
or  theism ;  second,  the  metaphysical,  or  transitional 
stage,  in  which  a  passage  is  made  from  divine  per- 
sons to  personified  abstractions,  which  are  supposed 
to  underlie,  animate,  and  produce  phenomena;  and  as 
the  highest  conception  of  the  supernatural  stage  is 
God  considered  as  cause,  so  the  highest  conception 
of  the  metaphysical  stage  is  Nature,  considered  as 
force ;  third,  the  positive  stage,  in  which  all  inquiry 
after  causes  and  essences  is  discarded,  God  and  Na- 
ture are  expelled  from  phenomena,  and  things  are 
classified  according  to  their  invariable  relations  of 
succession  and  similitude.  The  hope  of  the  positivist 
is,  that  the  various  laws  with  which  he  now  contents 
his  understanding  will,  in  the  progress  and  perfection 
of  science,  be  found  to  be  the  expression  of  one 
general  and  all-inclusive  Law.  There  are,  therefore, 
three  modes  of  viewing  facts  and  relations:  the  first, 
which  represents  the  infancy  of  a  science,  regards 
God  as  the  Creator,  the  second  regards  Nature  as 
the  soul,  and  the  third  regards  Law  as  the  regulator, 
of  phenomena.  The  highest  conception  of  the  posi- 
tivist, if  individualized,  would  represent  the  universe 
under  the  care  of  a  colossal,  yet  impersonal  police- 
man,   whose    business    was    to    preserve    order.     At 


AGASSIZ.  283 

present,  the  positivist  admits  that  he  has  only  seen 
some  of  the  inferior  police,  but  he  thinks  the  glori- 
ous hope  may  be  not  unreasonably  indulged  that, 
ages  after  he  is  rotten,  humanity  will  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  master  constable  himself.  By  the  limitation 
of  the  human  faculties  it  is  impossible  for  him  to 
pass  to  any  other  orders  of  government.  If  he  keeps 
within  the  circle  of  the  knowable,  he  stops  at  the 
constable ;  to  superstition  and  metaphysics  belong  the 
absurdity  of  asserting  that  the  constable  is  not  ulti- 
mate, but  implies  a  governor  and  a  sovereign! 

Now,  in  the  "  Essay  on  Classification,"  Mr.  Agassiz 
has  certainly  indicated  his  right  to  be  ranked  with 
positive  philosophers  as  far  as  the  observation,  dis- 
covery, and  verification  of  laws  is  concerned.  He  is 
true  throughout  to  facts  and  the  relations  of  facts,  to 
those  "  invariable  relations  of  succession  and  simili- 
tude "  which  the  objects  of  his  science  bear  to  each 
other.  He  reaches  positive  conclusions,  which  there 
is  every  probability  that  future  additions  to  natural 
history  will  confirm.  He  knows  everything  which 
the  positivists  of  zoology  —  positivists  after  the  idea 
of  Comte — have  observed  and  demonstrated.  He  has 
taken  the  science  as  left  by  them,  and  carried  it  for- 
ward ;  and  both  as  an  anatomist  and  embryologist,  as 
an   observer  of  the   structure   of  animals   and  as  an 


284  AGASsiz. 

observer  of  their  development,  he  has  put  on  immov 
able  foundations  the  great  law  that  all  animals  are 
organized  upon  four  different  plans  of  structure,  and 
grow  up  according  to  four  different  modes  of  devel- 
opment. He  has  corrected  the  errors,  in  matters  of 
fact,  of  many  naturalists  of  Comte's  method  of  think- 
ing, who,  while  they  are  never  weary  of  stigmatiziug 
the  influence  of  theological  and  metaphysical  theories 
in  corrupting  science,  have  themselves  unconsciously 
misread  facts  by  viewing  them  in  the  light  of  mislead- 
ing theories.  And  after  showing,  as  Mr.  Agassiz  has 
done,  that  the  various  divisions  of  the  system  of  classi- 
fication he  espouses  exist  in  nature,  are  independent  of 
the  human  mind,  and  are  confirmed  by  observation 
and  experiment,  it  will  not  do  to  say  that  the  science 
of  zoology  itself  is  not  yet  in  the  positive  stage. 
How,  then,  are  we  to  account  for  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Agassiz  reverses  the  "  inevitable  "  evolution  of  scien- 
tific thought?  How  shall  we  explain  the  problem 
that  he  passes  from  the  positive  stage  to  the  super- 
natural, instead  of  to  the  positive  from  the  supernat- 
ural? It  may  be  hinted  —  and  tolerance  and  charity 
are  not  always  accompaniments  of  scientific  infidelity 
—  that  he  does  it  in  deference  to  popular  prejudice, 
and  not  in  obedience  to  the  evidence  of  objective 
truth.  This  insinuation  deserves  to  be  considered 
somewhat  at  length. 


AGASSIZ.  285 

And  first,  we  admit  the  paramount  importance,  in 
the  investigation  of  the  facts  of  creation,  of  that  in- 
dependence of  thought  which  is  based  on  courageous 
character.  Cowardice  paralyzes  the  noblest  powers ; 
and  we  own  to  an  instinctive  sympathy  with  every 
man  who,  in  stating  the  conscientious  results  of 
thought  and  research,  is  honored  with  a  howl  of 
execration  from  that  large  body  of. persons  who  sup- 
pose tliat  religion  is  only  safe  when  it  is  under  the 
guardianship  of  ignorance  and  unreason.  But  we  do 
not  think  that  the  fear  of  rousing  theological  preju- 
dice is  the  kind  of  fear  that  a  man  of  science  is 
now  in  most  danger  of  regarding.  He  is  more 
tempted  to  yield  to  that  refined  form  of  cowardice 
which  makes  him  apprehensive  of  offending  the  prej- 
udices of  his  order.  A  theological  leaning  in  his 
scientific  speculations  is  likely  to  expose  him  to  the 
suspicious  of  his  peers  in  science,  and  withdraw  from 
him  the  signs  of  that  subtle  freemasonry  by  which 
leading  minds  recognize  each  other.  In  France, 
where  eminence  in  the  physical  and  mathematical 
sciences  is  the  measure  of  intellectual  ability,  there  is 
a  strong  scientific  prejudice  against  associating  nat- 
ural science  with  natural  theology ;  and  France  has 
done  much  to  give  the  tone  to  the  scientific  world. 
It  would    be    horrible,  if  it  were  not  comical,  to  no- 


286  AGASSIZ. 

tice  the  gravity  with  which  the  savans  of  the  great 
nation  have  withdrawn  their  patronage  from  the 
Deity.  Even  Cousin,  in  his  metaphysical  opposition 
to  the  materialistic  tendencies  of  French  thought, 
excogitates  a  Deity  who  is  rather  a  fine  effect  of 
philosophic  rhetoric  than  an  object  of  worship ;  and 
he  treats  Christianity  as  a  man  of  charming  manners 
would  treat  a  pretty  child,  making  philosophy  most 
condescendingly  hold  out  its  hand  to  her !  In  the 
middle  of  the  last  century  the  very  valets  of  the 
French  men  of  science  considered  belief  in  God  the 
mark  of  a  vulgar  mind.  Infidelity  was  prattled  by 
fops  just  as  superstition  was  prattled  by  devotees. 
Free  and  liberal  minds,  so  called,  became  members 
of  an  intellectual  aristocracy,  of  which  atheism,  bla- 
tant or  latent,  was  the  condition  of  admittance.  At 
present  God  is  not  so  much  denied  as  ignored. 
French  science  professes  to  get  along  very  well 
without  him.  Religion,  as  far  as  it  pretends  to 
intellectual  supports,  is  regarded  as  a  sign  of  weak- 
ness, hypocrisy,  or  fear ;  and  the  fear  of  being 
thought  a  coward  operates  to  scare  many  natural 
philosophers  into  something  very  like  cowardice.  To 
avoid  the  imputation  of  superstition,  they  often  hesi- 
tate to  follow  the  natural  action  of  their  understand- 
ings.    We   therefore    consider   that    Mr.    Agassiz,   as 


AGASSIZ.  287 

far  as  respects  the  public  opinion  of  the  scientific 
world,  —  which  is  the  public  opinion  to  which  he 
naturally  pays  most  heed,  —  will  rather  lose  caste 
than  gain  fame  among  scientific  naturalists  by  insist- 
ing so  strenuously  as  he  does  on  the  theological,  as- 
pects of  his  science.  Especially  will  he  be  made  the 
object  of  ridicule  for  his  belief  in  the  interference  of 
God,  as  Creator,  in  each  geological  epoch,  —  a  doc- 
trine which  will  be  considered  by  many  as  equiva- 
lent to  introducing  miracles  into  science,  and  as 
carrying  it  back  to  the  most  besotted  supernatural 
stage  of  knowledge. 

We  think,  therefore,  that  Mr.  Agassiz  overcame  a 
temptation,  rather  than  yielded  to  one,  when  he 
broke  through  the  technical  limitations  of  his  science, 
and  passed  from  laws  to  ideas,  and  from  ideas  to 
God.  But  we  have  stronger  proof  that  no  desire 
to  propitiate  popular  prejudices  induced  him  to  run 
the  risk  of  offending  scientific  prejudices,  in  the 
qualities  of  character  impressed  on  his  work  itself. 
The  task  of  criticism  is  not  merely  to  apply  laws, 
but  discern  natures ;  and  certainly  Mr.  Agassiz,  in 
the  "Essay  on  Classification,"  has  exhibited  himself 
as  clearly  as  he  has  exhibited  his  subject.  An  hon- 
est, sturdy,  generous,  self-renouncing  love  of  truth, 
and  willingness  to  follow  whithersoever  it  leads,  —  to 


288  AGASSIZ. 

atheism,  if  the  facts  force  him  that  way,  to  theism, 
if  the  facts  conduct  him  to  God,  —  this  is  the  char- 
acteristic which  his  broad  and  open  nature  has 
stamped  unmistakably  on  his  page.  Every  sentence 
speaks  scorn  of  intellectual  reserves,  and  innocence 
of  intellectual  guile.  And  it  is  this  truthful  spirit 
animating  his  labors  which  gives  to  his  results  no 
small  portion  of  their  value  and  significance ;  for 
falseness,  in  the  character  is  likely  in  the  end  to 
become  falseness  in  the  intellect ;  and  a  thinker  on 
the  great  themes  which  interest  all  mankind  is 
shorn  of  his  influence  if  his  qualities  of  disposition 
are  such  as  to  cast  doubts  on  his  mental  honesty, 
and  to  put  his  readers  continually  on  their  guard 
against  observations  he  is  supposed  capable  of  mak- 
ing wilfully  inaccurate,  and  reasonings  he  is  sup- 
posed capable  of  making  wilfully  fallacious. 

In  his  "Essay  on  Classification,**  Mr.  Agassiz  states 
his  scientific  convictions.  But  he  is  not  merely  a 
scientific  thinker :  he  is  a  scientific  force ;  and  no 
small  portion  of  the  immense  influence  he  exerts  is 
due  to  the  energy,  intensity,  and  geniality  which 
distinguish  the  nature  of  the  man.  In  personal  in- 
tercourse he  inspires  as  well  as  informs,  communi- 
cates not  only  knowledge,  but  the  love  of  knowl- 
edge, and  makes  for  the  time  everything  appear  of 


AGASSIZ.  28& 

small  account  in  comparison  with  the  subject  which 
has  possession  of  his  soul.  To  hear  him  speak  on 
his  favorite  themes  is  to  become  inflamed  with  his 
enthusiasm.  He  is  at  once  one  of  the  most  domi- 
nating and  one  of  the  most  sympathetic  of  men, 
having  the  quahties  of  leader  and  companion  com- 
bined in  singular  harmony.  People  follow  him,  work 
for  him,  contribute  money  for  his  objects,  not  only 
from  the  love  inspired  by  his  good  fellowship,  but 
from  the  compulsion  exercised  by  his  force.  Di- 
vorced from  his  geniality,  his  energy  would  make 
him  disliked  as  a  dictator;  divorced  from  his  energy, 
his  geniality  would  be  barren  of  practical  effects. 
The  good-will  he  inspires  in  others  quickens  theii 
active  faculties  as  well  as  their  benevolent  feelings. 
They  feel  that,  magnetized  by  the  man,  they  must 
do  something  for  the  science  impersonated  in  the 
man, — that  there  is  no  way  of  enjoying  his  compan- 
ionship without  catching  the  contagion  of  his  spirit. 
He  consequently  wields,  through  his  social  qualities, 
a  wider  personal  influence  over  a  wider  variety  of 
persons  than  any  other  scientific  man  of  his  time^ 
At  his  genial  instigation,  laborers  delve  and  divCj 
students  toil  for  specimens,  merchants  open  their 
purses,  legislatures  pass  appropriation  bills.  To  do 
something  for  Agassiz  is  a  pleasing  addition  to  the 
IS  s 


290  AGASSIZ. 

Whole  Duty  of  Man  in  the  region  where  he  lives. 
Everybody  feels  that  the  indefatigable  observer  and 
thinker,  who  declined  a  lucrative  lecture  invitation 
because,  he  said,  he  could  not  waste  his  time  in 
making  money,  has  no  other  than  public  ends  in 
his  eager  demands  for  public  co-operation  in  his 
scientific  schemes.  A  perfect  democrat  in  his  man* 
ners,  meeting  every  man  on  the  level  of  his  posi- 
tion and  character,  he  is  the  equal  and  companion 
of  all,  and  inundates  all  with  his  abounding  personal 
vitality  and  cheer.  At  times  the  intensity  of  his 
temperament  may  rise  to  something  like  irascibility 
in  the  championship  of  his  settled  convictions;  but 
this  is  felt  to  be  a  necessary  consequence  of  that 
identification  of  the  man  with  his  pursuit  which  is 
the  spring  of  his  tireless  energy  and  of  his  all-sacri- 
ficing devotion  to  the  advancement  of  his  science. 
Even  his  vehemence  partakes  of  the  largeness,  gen- 
erosity, and  geniality  of  his  nature,  —  is  the  "noble 
rage"  of  a  capacious  yet  ardent  intelligence,  momen- 
tarily carried  away  by  that  hatred  of  error  which  is 
the  negative  form  of  the  love  of  truth. 

This  wide  geniality  is  not,  in  Agassiz,  confined  to 

his  own  race,  but  extends   to   the  objects  of  his  sci- 

^ence.     He  considers  all  organized  beings  as  endowed 

with  minds ;  and  as  a  dramatic  poet  passes,  by  imagi- 


AGASSIZ.  291 

nation  and  sympathy,  into  individual  natures  differ- 
ing from  his  own,  thinking  from  the  point  of  view 
of  Bottom  as  easily  as  from  the  point  of  view  of 
Hamlet,  so  Agassiz,  passing  tin  bounds  even  of  his 
own  kind,  has  a  sort  of  int^pretative  glance  into 
the  mental  and  moral  constitution  of  animals,  as  well 
as  a  scientific  perception  of  their  structure.  He 
seems  at  times  to  have  established  spiritual  commu- 
nication with  them,  so  deeply  and  sympathetically  he 
comprehends  their  natures  and  needs;  and  it  might 
be  said  that  they  appear  to  have  a  dim  perception 
of  his  good  intentions  towards  their  order,  even  when 
he  is  compelled  to  sacrifice  individuals  among  them 
for  the  good  of  the  science  by  which  they  are  enno- 
bled. We  never  hear  of  his  being  injured  by  any 
of  the  creatures  he  captures  and  dissects.  By  a  fan- 
ciful exaggeration,  we  might  even  suppose  that  the 
martyrs  of  his  zoological  researches,  the  patriots  of 
the  Animal  Kingdom,  the  Leonidases  and  Hofers 
of  natural  history,  had  a  consciousness  that  they 
were  immolated  for  the  benefit  of  their  species;  that 
their  death  was  the  price  by  which  the  welfare  of 
their  race  was  to  be  assured;  that  Agassiz,  their  in- 
terpreter, who  introduced  them  to  the  higher  human 
order  of  beings,  had  the  dignity  and  permanent  inter- 
ests of  their  kind  at  heart  even  when  he  killed;  and 


292  AGASSIZ. 

that  in  his  hands  they  became  illustrations  and  proofs 
of  a  vast  scheme  of  creation,  visible  links  in  a  chain 
of  reasoning  which,  beginning  with  the  structure  of 
the  lowest  form  of  animal,  life,  has  no  other  intelli* 
gent  end  than  in  the  ideas  of  God. 


LI  li  li  A  iv  J 
UNIVKHSITY  OF 

CALIFORNIA^ 
xn. 


WASHINGTON  AND  THE  PRINCIPLES  OP 
THE   REVOLUTION.* 

THE  day,  gentlemen,  we  have  here  met  to  com- 
memorate, in  the  spirit  of  a  somewhat  soberer 
joy  than  rings  in  the  noisy  jubilee  of  the  streets,  is 
not  so  much  a  day  dedicated  to  liberty  in  the  ab- 
stract, as  a  day  especially  consecrated  to  American 
liberty  and  American  independence.  The  true  char- 
acter of  that  liberty  is  to  be  sought  in  the  events  of 
our  Colonial  history,  in  the  manners  and  laws  of  our 
Colonial  forefathers,  and,  above  all,  in  the  stern,  brief 
epitome  of  our  whole  Colonial  life  contained  in  that 
memorable  Declaration,  the  maxims  of  whose  sturdy 
wisdom  still  sound  in  our  ears  and  linger  in  our 
hearts,  as  we  have  heard  them  read  in  this  hall  to- 
day; a  Declaration  peculiar  among  all  others  of  its 
kind,  not  merely  for  the  fearless  free  spirit  which 
beats  and  burns  beneath  every  decisive  sentence,  but 
for  its  combination  of  clearness   in    the  statement  of 

*  An  Oration  delivered  before  tbe  municipal  authorities  of  Bos- 
ton, July  4, 1850. 


294  WASHINGTON   AND   THE   PRINCIPLES 

particular  grievances  with  audacity  in  the  announce- 
ment of  general  principles ;  a  Declaration,  indeed, 
abounding  in  sentiments  of  liberty  so  sinewy  and 
bold,  and  ideas  of  liberty  so  exact  and  practical,  that 
it  bears  on  every  immortal  feature  the  signs  of  rep- 
resenting a  people,  to  whom  liberty  had  been  long 
familiar  as  a  living  law,  as  an  organized  institution, 
as  a  homely,  household  fact.  The  peculiarities  which 
distinguish  the  whole  substance  and  tone  of  this  sol- 
emn instrument  are  peculiarities  of  the  American 
Revolution  itself,  giving  dignity  to  its  events  and 
import  to  its  principles,  as  they  gave  success  to  its 
arms. 

Liberty,  considered  as  an  element  of  human  na- 
ture, would  naturally,  if  unchecked,  follow  an  ideal 
law  of  development,  appearing  first  as  a  dim  but 
potent  sentiment;  then  as  an  intelligent  sentiment,  or 
idea ;  then  as  an  organized  idea,  or  body  of  institu- 
tions, recognizing  mutual  rights  and  enforcing  mutual 
duties.  But,  in  its  historical  development,  we  find 
that  the  unselfish  nature  of  liberty  is  strangely  inter- 
inixed  with  its  selfish  perversion ;  that,  in  struggling 
with  outward  oppression,  it  develops  inward  hatreds; 
that  the  sentiment  is  apt  to  fester  into  a  malignant 
passion,  the  idea  to  dwindle  into  a  barren  opinion, 
and  this  passionate  opinion  to  issue  in  anarchy,  which 


OP   THE   REVOLUTION.  295 

is  despotism  disorganized,  but  as  tyrannical  under  its 
thousand  wills  as  under  its  one.  These  hostile  ele- 
ments, which  make  up  the  complex  historical  fact  of 
liberty, — one  positive,  the  other  negative,  —  one  or- 
ganizing, the  other  destructive,  —  are  always  at  work 
in  human  affairs  with  beneficent  or  baleful  energy ; 
but,  as  society  advances,  the  baser  elements  give 
way  by  degrees  to  the  nobler,  and  liberty  ever  tends 
to  realize  itself  in  law.  The  most  genial  operation 
of  its  creative  spirit  is  when  it  appears  as  a  still, 
mysterious,  plastic  influence,  silently  and  surely  mod- 
ifying the  whole  constitution  of  a  despotic  society, 
stealing  noiselessly  into  manners,  insinuating  itself 
into  the  administration  of  laws,  grafting  new  shoots 
upon  the  decaying  trunks  of  old  institutions,  and  in- 
sensibly building  up  in  a  people's  mind  a  character 
strong  enough  to  maintain  rights  which  are  also  cus- 
toms. If  its  most  beneficent  influence  be  seen  in  its 
gradual  organization  of  liberties,  of  sentiments  rooted 
in  facts,  its  most  barren  effect  for  good  is  when  it 
scatters  abstract  opinions  of  freedom,  true  to  nothing 
existing  in  a  people's  practical  life,  and  scorning  all 
alliance  with  manners  or  compromise  with  fact.  This 
is  a  fertile  source  of  disorder,  of  revolts  which  end 
in  massacres,  of  Ages  of  Reason  w^hich  end  in 
Reigns   of  Terror ;   and  perhaps  the  failure  of  most 


296  WASHINGTON   AND   THE   PRINCIPLES 

of  the  European  movements  comes  from  their  being 
either  mad  uprisings  against  the  pressure  of  intolera- 
ble miseries,  or  fruitless  strivings  to  establish  abstract 
principles.  Such  principles,  however  excellent  as 
propositions,  can  influence  only  a  small  minority  of 
a  nation,  for  a  nation  rises  only  in  defence  of  rights 
which  have  been  violated,  not  for  rights  which  it 
has  never  exercised ;  and  abstract  "  liberty,  equality, 
and  fraternity,"  pushed  by  amiable  sentimentalists 
like  Lamartine,  and  Satanic  sentimentalists  like  Le- 
dru  Rollin,  have  found  their  fit  result  in  the  armed 
bureaucracy,  now  encamped  in  Paris,  under  the 
ironical  nickname  of  "  French  Republic." 

Now,  it  was  the  peculiar  felicity  of  our  position, 
that  free  institutions  were  planted  here  at  the  origi- 
nal settlement  of  the  country,  —  institutions  which 
De  Tocqueville  considers  founded  on  principles  far 
in  advance  of  the  wisest  political  science  of  Europe 
at  that  day;  and  accordingly  our  Revolution  began  in 
the  defence*  of  rights  which  were  customs,  of  ideas 
which  were  facts,  of  liberties  which  were  laws  ;  and 
these  rights,  ideas,  and  liberties,  embodying  as  they 
did  the  common  life  and  experience  of  the  people, 
were  truly  considered  a  palpable  property,  an  inal- 
ienable inheritance  of  freedom,  which  the  Stamp  Act, 
and  the  other  measures  of  Colonial  taxation,  threat- 


OF   THE   REVOLUTION.  297 

ened  with  confiscation.  Parliament,  therefore,  ap- 
peared in  America  as  a  spoiler,  making  war  upon 
the  people  it  assumed  to  govern,  and  it  thus  stimu- 
lated and  combined  the  opposition  of  all  classes ;  for 
a  wrong  cannot  but  be  universally  perceived  when  it 
is  universally  felt.  By  thus  starting  up  in  defence 
of  the  freedom  they  really  possessed,  the  Colonies 
vastly  increased  it.  In  struggling  against  innovation, 
they  "  innovated "  themselves  into  independence ;  in 
battling  against  novelties,  they  wrought  out  into  act- 
ual form  the  startling  novelty  of  constitutional  Amer- 
ican liberty.  It  was  because  they  had  exercised 
rights  that  they  were  such  proficients  in  principles ; 
it  was  because  they  had  known  liberty  as  an  institu- 
tion that  they  understood  it  as  a  science. 

Thus  it  was  not  so  much  the  perception  of  ab- 
stract opinions,  as  the  inspiration  of  positive  institu- 
tions, which  gave  our  forefathers  the  heart  to  brave, 
and  the  ability  successfully  to  defy,  the  colossal 
power  of  England  ;  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  in 
its  obnoxious  colonial  policy  England  had  parted 
with  her  wisdom,  and  in  parting  with  her  wisdom 
had  weakened  her  power ;  falling,  as  Burke  says, 
under  the  operation  of  that  immutable  law  "which 
decrees  vexation  to  violence,  and  poverty  to  rapine." 
The  England  arrayed  against  us  w^as  not  the  Eng- 
13* 


298  WASHINGTON   AND  THE   PRINCIPLES 

land  which,  a  few  years  before,  its  energies  wielded 
by  the  lofty  and  impassioned  genius  of  the  elder 
Pitt,  had  smitten  the  power  and  humbled  the  pride 
of  two  great  European  monarchies,  and  spread  its 
fleets  and  armies,  animated  by  one  vehement  soul, 
over  three  quarters  of  the  globe.  The  administra- 
tions of  the  English  government,  from  1760  to  the 
close  of  our  Revolutionary  war,  were  more  or  less 
directed  by  the  intriguing  incapacity  of  the  king. 
George  the  Third  is  said  to  have  possessed  many 
private  virtues,  —  and  very  private  for  a  long  time 
he  kept  them  from  his  subjects,  —  but,  as  a  monarch, 
he  was  without  magnanimity  in  his  sentiments  or 
enlargement  in  his  ideas ;  prejudiced,  uncultivated, 
bigoted,  and  perverse ;  and  his  boasted  morality  and 
piety,  when  exercised  in  the  sphere  of  government, 
partook  of  the  narrowness  of  his  mind  and  the  ob- 
stinacy of  his  will ;  his  conscience  being  used  to 
transmute  his  hatreds  into  duties,  and  his  religious 
sentiment  to  sanctify  his  vindictive  passions ;  and  as 
it  was  his  ambition  to  rule  an  empire  by  the  petty 
politics  of  a  court,  he  preferred  rather  to  have  his 
folly  flattered  by  parasites  than  his  ignorance  en- 
lightened by  statesmen.  Such  a  disposition  in  the 
king  of  a  free  country  was  incompatible  with  effi- 
ciency  in   the   conduct  of  affairs,   as  it  split  parties 


OF   THE    REVOLUTION.  299 

into  factions,  and  made  established  principles  yield  to 
personal  expedients.  Bute,  the  king's  first  minister, 
after  a  short  administration  unexampled  for  corrup- 
tion and  feebleness,  gave  way  before  a  storm  of  pop- 
uiaiC  contempt  and  hatred.  To  him  succeeded  George 
Grenville,  the  originator  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  the 
blundering  promoter  of  American  Independence,  Gren- 
ville wa^  a  hard,  sullen,  dogmatic,  penurious  man  of 
affi.irs>  with  a  complete  mastery  of  the  details  of 
parliamentary  business,  and  threading  with  ease  all 
the  labyrlnl;hs  of  English  law,  but  limited  in  his  con- 
ceptions, fixed  in  his  opinions,  without  any  of  that 
sagacity  which  reads  results  in  their  principles,  and 
chiefly  distinguished  for  a  kind  of  sour  honesty,  not 
infrequently  found  in  men  of  harsh  tempers  and 
technical  intellects.  It  was  soon  discovered,  that, 
though  imperious  enough  to  be  a  tyrant,  he  was  not 
servile  enough  to  be  a  tool;  that  the  same  domineer- 
ing temper  which  enabled  him  to  push  arbitrary 
measures  in  Parliament,  made  him  put  insolent  ques- 
tions in  the  closet;  and  the  king,  in  despair  of  a 
servant  who  could  not  tax  America  and  persecute 
Wilkes,  without  at  the  same  time  insulting  his  mas- 
ter, dismissed  him  for  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham, 
Ihe  leader  of  the  great  Whig  connection,  and  a  sturdy 
friend  of  the  Colonists  both  before  the  Revolution  and 


300  WASHINGTON    AND    THE    PRINCIPLES 

during  its  progress.  Under  him  the  Stamp  Act  was 
repealed  ;  but  bis  administration  soon  proved  too  lib- 
eral to  satisfy  the  politicians  who  governed  the  un- 
derstanding of  the  king ;  and  the  experiment  was 
tried  of  a  composite  ministry,  put  together  by  Chat- 
ham, consist iniT  of  members  selected  from  different 
factions,  but  without  any  principle  of  cohesion  to 
unite  them ;  and  the  anarchy  inherent  in  the  arrange- 
ment became  portentously  apparent,  when  Chatham, 
driven  by  the  gout  into  a  state  of  nervous  imbecility, 
left  it  to  work  out  its  mission  of  misrule,  and  its 
eccentric  control  was  seized  by  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  the  gay,  false,  dissipated,  veering,  presump- 
tuous, and  unscrupulous  Charles  Townshend.  This  man 
was  so  brilliant  and  fascinating  as  an  orator,  that  Wal- 
pole  said  of  one  of  his  speeches,  that  it  was  like  hear- 
ing Garrick  act  extempore  scenes  from  Congreve ; 
but  he  was  without  any  guiding  moral  or  political 
principles;  and,  boundlessly  admired  by  the  House 
of  Commons  and  boundlessly  craving  its  admiration, 
he  seemed  to  act  ever  from  the  impulses  of  vanity, 
and  speak  ever  from  the  inspiration  of  champagne. 
Grenville,  smarting  under  his  recent  defeat,  but  still 
doggedly  bent  on  having  a  revenue  raised  in  Amer 
ica,  missed  no  opportunity  of  goading  this  v^n^atile 
political  roue  with  his  exasperating  sarcasms.     ^You 


OF   THE   REVOLUTION.  301 

are  cowards,"  said  he  on  one  occasion,  turning  to  the 
Treasury  bench ;  "  you  are  afraid  of  the  Americans ; 
you  dare  not  tax  America."  Townshend,  stung  by 
this  taunt,  started  passionately  up  from  his  seat,  ex- 
claiming, "Fear!  cowards!  dare  not  tax  America!  I 
do  dare  tax  America!"  and  this  boyish  bravado  ush- 
ered in  the  celebrated  bill,  which  was  to  cost  Eng- 
land thirteen  colonies,  add  a  hundred  millions  of 
pounds  to  her  debt,  and  affix  a  stain  on  her  public 
character.  Townshend,  by  the  grace  of  a  putrid  fever, 
was  saved  from  witnessing  the  consequences  of  his 
vainglorious  presumption ;  and  the  direction  of  his 
policy  eventually  fell  into  the  hands  of  Lord  North, 
a  good-natured,  second-rate,  jobbing  statesman,  equally 
destitute  of  lofty  virtues  and  splendid  vices,  under 
whose  administration  the  American  war  was  com- 
menced and  prosecuted.  Of  all  the  ministers  of 
George  the  Third,  North  was  the  most  esteemed  by 
his  sovereign ;  for  he  had  the  tact  to  follow  plans 
which  originated  in  the  king's  unreasoning  brain  and 
wilful  disposition,  and  yet  to  veil  their  weak  injus- 
tice in  a  drapery  of  arguments  furnished  from  his 
own  more  enlarged  mind  and  easier  temper.  Chat- 
ham and  Camden  thundered  against  him  in  the 
Lords ;  Burke  and  Fox  raved  and  shouted  states 
manship  to  him  in  the  Commons,  and    screamed   out 


802  WASHINGTON    AND   THE   PRINCIPLES 

the  maxims  of  wisdom  in  ecstasies  of  invective ;  but 
he,  good-naturedly  tolerant  to  political  adversaries, 
blandly  indifferent  to  popular  execration,  and  sleeping 
quietly  through  whole  hours  of  philippics  hot  with 
threats  of  impeachment,  pursued  his  course  of  court- 
ordained  folly  with  the  serene  composure  of  a  Ulys- 
ses or  a  Somers.  The  war,  as  conducted  by  his 
ministry,  w^as  badly  managed;  but  he  had  one  wise 
thought  which  happily  failed  to  become  a  fact.  The 
command  in  America,  on  the  breaking  out  of  serious 
disturbances,  was  offered  to  Lord  Clive ;  but,  fortu- 
nately for  us,  Clive,  at  about  that  time,  concluded  to 
commit  suicide,  and  our  rustic  soldiery  were  thus 
saved  from  meeting  in  the  field  a  general,  who,  in 
vigor  of  will  and  fertility  of  resource,  was  unequalled 
by  any  European  commander  who  had  appeared  since 
the  death  of  Marlborough.  It  may  here  be  added, 
that  Lord  North's  plans  of  conciliation  were  the 
amiabilities  of  tyranny  and  benignities  of  extortion. 
They  bring  to  mind  the  little  French  fable,  wherein 
a  farmer  convokes  the  tenants  of  his  barn-yard,  and 
with  sweet  solemnity  says,  "Dear  animals,  I  have 
assembled  you  here  to  advise  me  w^hat  sauce  I  shall 
cook  you  with."  "But,"  exclaims  an  insurrectionary 
chicken,  "  we  don't  want  to  be  eaten  at  all ! "  —  to 
which  the  urbane  chairman  replies,  ^'My  child,  you 
wander  from  the  point ! " 


OF   THE   REVOLUTION.  303 

Such  was  the  government  whose  policy  and  whose 
arms  were  directed  against  our  rights  and  liberties 
during  the  Revolutionary  war.  As  soon  as  the 
struggle  began,  it  was  obvious  that  England  could 
hold  dominion  over  no  portion  of  the  country,  except 
what  her  armies  occupied  or  wasted  for  the  time ; 
and  that  the  issue  of  the  contest  turned  on  the  ques- 
tion as  to  which  would  first  yield,  —  the  obstinacy  of 
the  king  or  the  fortitude  of  the  Americans.  It  w^as 
plain  that  George  the  Third  would  never  yield 
except  under  compulsion  from  the  other  forces  of 
the  English  constitution;  that,  as  long  as  a  corrupt 
House  of  Commons  would  vote  supplies,  he  would 
prosecute  the  war,  no  matter  what  might  be  the  ex- 
pense of  blood  and  treasure  to  England,  no  matter 
what  might  be  the  infliction  of  misery  upon  America. 
Conquest  was  hopeless;  and  Lord  North,  before  the 
war  was  half  concluded,  was  in  favor  of  abandoning 
it;  but  all  considerations^  of  policy  and  humanity 
were  lost  upon  the  small  mind  and  conscientiously 
malignant  temper  of  the  king.  Indeed,  the  peculiar- 
ity of  our  struggle  consisted  in  its  being  with  an 
unwise  ruler,  who  could  not  understand  that  war, 
waged  after  the  objects  for  which  it  was  declared 
have  utterly  failed,  becomes  mere  rapine  and  mur- 
der; and  our  energy  and  endurance  were  put  to  the 


304  WASHINGTON   AND   THE   PKINCIPLES 

terrible  test,  of  bearing  up  against  the  king's  armies, 
until  the  English  nation,  humbling  its  irritated  pride, 
should  be  roused  in  our  behalf,  and  break  down  the 
king's  stubborn  purpose.  We  all  know,  and  may  we 
never  forget,  that  this  resistance  to  tyrannical  inno- 
vation was  no  fiery  outbreak  of  popular  passion, 
spending  itself  in  two  or  three  battles,  and  then  sub- 
siding into  gloomy  apathy ;  but  a  fixed  and  reason- 
able resolve,  proof  against  corrupt  and  sophistical 
plans  of  conciliation,  against  defeats  and  massacres, 
against  universal  bankruptcy  and  commercial  ruin, — 
a  resolve,  which  the  sight  of  burning  villages,  and 
cities  turned  into  British  camps,  only  maddened  into 
fiercer  persistence,  and  which  the  slow  consuming 
fever  of  an  eight  years'  war,  with  its  soul-sickening 
calamities  and  vicissitudes,  could  not  weaken  into 
submission.  The  history,  so  sad  and  so  glorious, 
which  chronicles  the  stern  struggle  in  which  our 
rights  and  liberties  passed  through  the  awful  baptism 
of  fire  and  blood,  is  eloquent  with  the  deeds  of  many 
patriots,  warriors,  and  statesmen ;  but  these  all  fall 
into  relations  to  one  prominent  and  commanding  fig- 
ure, towering  up  above  the  whole  group  in  unap- 
proachable majesty,  whose  exalted  character,  warm 
and  bright  with  every  public  and  private  virtue,  and 
vital  with   the   essential   spirit   of  wisdom,  has   burst 


OF   THE    REVOLUTION.  305 

all    sectional    and    national    bounds,    and    made    the 
name  of  Washington  the  property  of  all  mankind. 

This  illustrious  man,  at  once  the  world's  admira- 
tion and  enigma,  we  are  taught  by  a  fine  instinct  to 
venerate,  and  by  a  wrong  opinion  to  misjudge.  The 
might  of  his  character  has  taken  strong  hold  upon 
the  feelings  of  great  masses  of  men ;  but,  in  trans 
lating  this  universal  sentiment  into  an  intelligent 
form,  the  intellectual  element  of  his  wonderful  nature 
is  as  much  depressed  as  the  moral  element  is  ex- 
alted, and  consequently  we  are  apt  to  misunder&tand 
both.  Mediocrity  has  a  bad  trick  of  idealizing  itself 
in  eulogizing  him,  and  drags  him  down  to  its  own 
level  while  assuming  td  lift  him  to  the  skies.  How 
many  times  have  we  been  told  that  he  v/as  not  a 
man  of  genius,  but  a  person  of  "  excellent  common 
sense,"  of  "admirable  judgment,"  of  "rare  virtues"! 
and,  by  a  constant  repetition  of  this  odious  cant,  we 
have  'nearly  succeeded  in  divorcing  comprehension 
from  his  sense,  insight  from  his  judgment,  force  from 
his  virtues,  and  life  from  the  man.  Accordingly,  in 
the  panegyric  of  cold  spirits,  Washington  disappears 
in  a  cloud  of  commonplaces ;  in  the  rodomontade  of 
boiling  patriots,  he  expires  in  the  agonies  of  rant. 
Now,  the  sooner  this  bundle  of  mediocre  talents  and 
moral    qualities,   which   its   contrivers    have    the    au- 


306  WASHINGTON   AND   THE   PRINCIPLES 

dacity  to  call  George  Washington,  is  hissed  out  of 
existence,  the  better  it  will  be  for  the  cause  of  talent 
and  the  cause  of  morals :  contempt  of  that  is  the  con- 
dition of  insight.  He  had  no  genius,  it  seems.  O 
no !  genius,  we  must  suppose,  is  the  peculiar  and 
Bhining  attribute  of  some  orator,  whose  tongue  can 
Bpout  patriotic  speeches,  or  some  versifier,  whose  muse 
can  "Hail  Columbia,"  but  not  of  the  man  who  sup- 
ported states  on  his  arm,  and  carried  America  in  his 
brain.  The  madcap  Charles  Townshend,  the  motion 
of  whose  pyrotechnic  mind  was  like  the  whiz  of  a 
hundred  rockets,  is  a  man  of  genius;  but  George 
Washington,  raised  up  above  the  level  of  even  emi- 
nent statesmen,  and  with  a  nature  moving  with  the 
still  and  orderly  celerity  of  a  planet  round  the  sun, 
—  he  dwindles,  in  comparison,  into  a  kind  of  angelic 
dunce !  What  is  genius  ?  Is  it  worth  anything  ?  Is 
splendid  folly  the  measure  of  its  inspiration  ?  Is  wis- 
doni  that  which  it  recedes  from,  or  tends  towards? 
And  by  what  definition  do  you  award  the  name  to 
the  creator  of  an  epic,  and  deny  it  to  the  creator  of 
a  country?  On  what  principle  is  it  to  be  lavished 
on  him  who  sculptures  in  perishing  marble  the  im- 
age of  possible  excellence,  and  withheld  from  him 
who  built  up  in  himself  a  transcendent  character, 
indestructible  as  the  obligations  of  Duty,  and  beauti 
ful  as  her  rewards? 


OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  807 

Indeed,  if  by  the  genius  of  action  you  mean  will 
enlightened  by  intelligence,  and  intelligence  energized 
by  will,  —  if  force  and  insight  be  its  characteristics, 
and  influence  its  test,  —  and,  especially,  if  great  ef- 
fects suppose  a  cause  proportionably  great,  that  is,  a 
vital  causative  mind,  —  then  is  Washington  most  as- 
suredly a  man  of  genius,  and  one  whom  no  other 
American  has  equalled  in  the  power  of  working 
morally  and  mentally  on  other  minds.  His  genius, 
it  is  true,  was  of  a  peculiar  kind,  the  genius  of  char- 
acter, of  thought  and  the  objects  of  thought  solidified 
and  concentrated  into  active  faculty.  He  belongs 
to  that  rare  class  of  men,  —  rare  as  Homers  and 
Miltons,  rare  as  Platos  and  Newtons,  —  who  have 
impressed  their  characters  upon  nations  without  pam- 
pering national  vices.  Such  men  have  natures  broad 
enough  to  include  all  the  facts  of  a  people's  practical 
life,  and  deep  enough  to  discern  the  spiritual  laws 
which  underlie,  animate,  and  govern  those  facts. 
Washington,  in  short,  had  that  greatness  of  charac- 
ter which  is  the  highest  expression  and  last  result 
of  greatness  of  mind ;  for  there  is  no  method  of 
building  up  character  except  through  mind.  Indeed, 
character  like  his  is  not  huilt  up,  stone  upon  stone, 
precept  upon  precept,  but  grows  up,  through  an  act- 
ual contact  of  thought  with  things,  —  the  assimilative 


308  WASHINGTON   AND   THE   PRINCIPLES 

mind  transmuting  the  impalpable  but  potent  spirit  of 
public  sentiment,  and  the  life  of  visible  facts,  and  the 
power  of  spiritual  laws,  into  individual  life  and  pow 
er,  so  that  their  mighty  energies  put  on  personality, 
as  it  were,  and  act  through  one  centralizing  human 
will.  This  process  may  not,  if  you  please,  make  the 
great  philosopher  or  the  great  poet;  but  it  does  make 
the  great  man,  —  the  man  in  whom  thought  and  judg- 
ment seem  identical  with  volition,  —  the  man  whose 
vital  expression  is  not  in  words,  but  deeds,  —  the 
man  whose  sublime  ideas  issue  necessarily  in  sublime 
acts,  not  in  sublime  art.  It  was  because  Washing- 
ton's character  was  thus  composed  of  the  inmost  sub- 
stance and  power  of  facts  and  principles,  that  men 
instinctively  felt  the  perfect  reality  of  his  comprehen- 
sive manhood.  This  reality  enforced  universal  re- 
spect, married  strength  to  repose,  and  threw  into  his 
face  that  commanding  majesty,  which  made  men  of 
the  speculative  audacity  of  Jefferson,  and  the  lucid 
genius  of  Hamilton,  recognize,  with  unwonted  meek- 
ness, his  awful  superiority. 

But,  you  may  say,  how  does  this  account  for  Wash- 
ington's virtues  ?  Was  his  disinterestedness  will  ?  Was 
his  patriotism  intelligence  ?  Was  his  morality  genius  ? 
These  questions  I  should  answer  with  an  emphatic 
yes;  for  there  are  few  falser  fallacies  than  that  which 


OF   THE   REVOLUTION.  309 

represents  moral  conduct  as  flowing  from  moral  opin- 
ions detached  from  moral  character.  Why,  there  is 
hardly  a  tyrant,  sycophant,  demagogue,  or  liberticide 
mentioned  in  history,  who  had  not  enough  moral 
opinions  to  suffice  for  a  new  Eden ;  and  Shakespeare, 
the  sure-seeing  poet  of  human  nature,  delights  to  put 
the  most  edifying  maxims  of  ethics  into  the  mouths 
ot  his  greatest  villains,  of  Angelo,  of  Richard  the 
Third,  of  the  uncle-father  of  Hamlet.  Without  doubt 
Caesar  and  Napoleon  could  have  discoursed  more  flu- 
ently than  Washington  on  patriotism,  as  there  are  a 
thousand  French  republicans,  of  the  last  hour's  coin* 
age,  who  could  prattle  more  eloquently  than  he  on 
freedom.  But  Washington's  morality  was  built  up  in 
warring  with  outward  temptations  and  inward  pas- 
sions, and  every  grace  of  his  conscience  was  a  trophy 
of  toil  and  struggle.  He  had  no  moral  opinions 
^hieh  hard  experience  and  sturdy  discipline  had  not 
vitalized  into  moral  sentiments,  and  organized  into 
moral  powers;  and  these  powers,  fixed  and  seated  in 
the  inmost  heart  of  his  character,  were  mighty  and 
far-sighted  forces,  which  made  his  intelligence  moral 
and  his  morality  intelligent,  and  which  no  sorcery  of 
the  selfish  passions  could  overcome  or  deceive.  In 
the  sublime  metaphysics  of  the  New  Testament,  his 
eye  was  single,  and  this  made  his  whole  body  full  of 


810  WASHINGTON   AND   THE   PRINCIPLES 

light.  It  is  just  here  that  so  many  other  eminent 
men  of  action,  who  have  been  tried  by  strong  temp- 
tations, have  miserably  failed.  Blinded  by  pride,  or 
whirled  on  by  wrath,  they  have  ceased  to  discern 
and  regard  the  inexorable  moral  laws,  obedience  to 
which  is  the  condition  of  all  permanent  success ;  and, 
in  the  labyrinths  of  fraud  and  unrealities  in  which 
crime  entangles  ambition,  the  thousand-eyed  genius 
of  wilful  error  is  smitten  with  folly  and  madness. 
No  human  intellect,  however  vast  its  compass  and 
delicate  its  tact,  can  safely  thread  those  terrible 
mazes.  "Every  heaven-stormer,"  says  a  quaint  Ger- 
man, "finds  his  hell,  as  sure  as  every  mountain  its 
valley."  Let  us  not  doubt  the  genius  of  Washington 
because  it  was  identical  with  wisdom,  and  because 
its  energies  worked  with,  and  not  against,  the  spirit- 
ual order  its  "single  eye"  was  gifted  to  divine.  We 
commonly  say  that  he  acted  in  accordance  with  moral 
laws  ;  but  we  must  recollect  that  moral  laws  are  in- 
tellectual facts,  and  are  known  through  intellectual 
processes.  We  commonly  say  that  he  w^as  so  consci- 
entious as  ever  to  follow  the  path  of  right,  and  obey 
the  voice  of  duty.  But  what  is  right  but  an  abstract 
term  for  rights?  What  is  duty  but  an  abstract  term 
for  duties?  Rights  and  duties  move  not  in  parallel 
but  converging  lines;  and  how,  in  the  terror,  discord, 


OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  311 

and  madness  of  a  civil  war,  with  rights  and  duties 
in  confused  conflict,  can  a  man  seize  on  the  exact 
point  where  clashing  rights  harmonize,  and  where 
opposing  duties  are  reconciled,  and  act  vigorously  on 
the  conception,  without  having  a  conscience  so  in- 
formed with  intelligence  that  his  nature  gravitates  to 
the  truth  as  by  the  very  instinct  and  essence  of 
reason  ? 

The  virtues  of  Washington,  therefore,  appear  moral 
or  mental  according  as  we  view  them  with  the  eye 
of  conscience  or  reason.  In  him,  loftiness  did  not 
exclude  breadth,  but  resulted  from  it;  justice  did  not 
exclude  wisdom,  but  grew  out  of  it ;  and,  as  the  wis- 
est as  well  as  justest  man  in  America,  he  was  pre- 
eminently distinguished  among  his  contemporaries  for 
moderation,  —  a  word  under  which  weak  politicians 
conceal  their  want  of  courage,  and  knavish  politicians 
their  want  of  principle,  but  which  in  him  was  vital 
and  comprehensive  energy,  tempering  audacity  with 
prudence,  self-reliance  with  modesty,  austere  princi- 
ples with  merciful  charities,  inflexible  purpose  with 
serene  courtesy,  and  issuing  in  that  persistent  and 
unconquerable  fortitude,  in  which  he  excelled  all 
mankind.  In  scrutinizing  the  events  of  his  life  to 
discover  the  processes  by  which  his  character  grew 
gradually  up  to  its   amazing  height,  we  are  arrested 


812  WASHINGTON   AND   THE   PRINCIPLES 

at  the  beginning  by  the  character  of  his  mother,  a 
woman  temperate  like  him  in  the  use  of  words,  from 
her  clear  perception  and  vigorous  grasp  of  things. 
There  is  a  familiar  anecdote  recorded  of  her,  which 
enables  us  to  understand  the  simple  sincerity  and 
genuine  heroism  she  early  instilled  into  his  strong 
and  aspiring  mind.  At  a  time  when  his  glory  rang 
through  Europe ;  when  excitable  enthusiasts  were 
crossing  the  Atlantic  for"  the  single  purpose  of  seeing 
him ;  when  bad  poets  all  over  the  world  were  sack- 
ing the  dictionaries  for  hyperboles  of  panegyric ; 
when  the  pedants  of  republicanism  were  calling  him 
the  American  Cincinnatus  and  the  American  Fabius 
—  as  if  our  Washington  were  honored  in  playing  the 
adjective  to  any  Roman,  however  illustrious !  —  she, 
in  her  quiet  dignity,  simply  said  to  the  voluble 
friends  who  were  striving  to  flatter  her  mother's 
pride  into  an  expression  of  exulting  praise,  "that  he 
had  been  a  good  son,  and  she  believed  he  had  done 
his  duty  as  a  man."  Under  the  care  of  a  mother, 
who  flooded  common  words  with  such  a  wealth  of 
meaning,  the  boy  was  not  likely  to  mistake  medioc- 
rity for  excellence,  but  would  naturally  domesticate 
in  his  heart  lofty'  principles  of  conduct,  and  act  from 
them  as  a  matter  of  course,  without  expecting  or  ob- 
taining  praise.     The   consequence  was,  that  in  early 


OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  813 

life,  and  in  his  first  occupation  as  surveyor,  and 
through  the  stirring  events  of  the  French  war,  he 
built  up  character  day  by  day  in  a  systematic  en- 
durance of  hardship;  in  a  constant  sacrifice  of  incli- 
nations to  duty ;  in  taming  hot  passions  into  the 
service  of  reason ;  in  assiduously  learning  from  other 
minds;  in  wringing  knowledge,  which  could  not  be 
taught  him,  from  the  reluctant  grasp  of  a  flinty  ex- 
perience ;  in  completely  mastering  every  subject  on 
which  he  fastened  his  intellect,  so  that  whatever  he 
knew  he  knew  perfectly  and  forever,  transmuting  it 
into  mind,  and  sending  it  forth  in  acts.  Intellectual 
and  moral  principles,  which  other  men  lazily  contem- 
plate and  talk  about,  he  had  learned  through  a  pro- 
cess which  gave  them  the  toughness  of  muscle  and 
bone.  A  man  thus  sound  at  the  core  and  on  the 
surface  of  his  nature ;  so  full  at  once  of  integrity  and 
sagacity ;  speaking  ever  from  the  level  of  his  charac- 
ter, and  always  ready  to  substantiate  opinions  with 
deeds;  —  a  man  without  any  morbid  egotism,  or  pre- 
tension, or  extravagance ;  simple,  modest,  dignified, 
incorruptible ;  never  giving  advice  which  events  did 
not  indorse  as  wise,  never  lacking  fortitude  to  bear 
calamities  which  resulted  from  his  advice  being  over- 
ruled;—  such  a  man  could  not  but  exact  that  recog- 
nition of  commanding  genius  which  inspires  universal 
14 


314-        WASHINGTON  AND  THE  PRINCIPLES 

confidence.  Accordingly,  when  the  contest  between 
the  colonies  and  the  mother  country  was  assuming 
its  inevitable  form  of  civil  war,  he  was  found  to  be 
our  natural  leader  in  virtue  of  being  the  ablest  man 
among  a  crowd  of  able  men.  When  he  appeared 
among  the  eloquent  orators,  the  ingenious  thinkers, 
the  vehement  patriots,  of  the  Revolution,  his  modesty 
and  temperate  professions  could  not  conceal  his  su- 
periority: he  at  once,  by  the  very  nature  of  great 
character,  was  felt  to  be  their  leader ;  towered  up, 
indeed,  over  all  their  heads  as  naturally  as  the  foun- 
tain, sparkling  yonder  in  this  July  sun,  which,  in  its 
long,  dark,  downward  journey,  forgets  not  the  altitude 
of  its  parent  lake,  and  no  sooner  finds  an  outlet  in 
our  lower  lands  than  it  mounts,  by  an  impatient  in- 
stinct, surely  up  to  the  level  of  its  far-off  inland 
source. 

After  the  first  flush  and  fever  of  the  Revolution- 
ary excitement  were  over,  and  the  haggard  fact  of 
civil  war  was  visible  in  all  its  horrors,  it  soon  ap- 
peared how  vitally  important  was  such  a  character 
to  the  success  of  such  a  cause.  We  have  already 
seen  that  the  issue  of  the  contest  depended,  not  on 
the  decision  of  this  or  that  battle,  not  on  the  occu- 
pation of  this  or  that  city,  but  on  the  power  of  the 
colonists   to  wear  out  the   patience,   exhaust  the  re- 


^f 


OF  THE  REVOLUTION.             ^  I'  /  315       '  ' 
sources,  and  tame  the  pride  of  Great  Sl  __^  ,  ^ 


i\kvof  r  The  ^  ^]- 
king,  when  Lord  North  threatened,  in  17  78,^0  resigrfi  ^  ^ 
unless  the  war  were  discontinued,  expressed  his^^d^-  ^  J ^i 
termination  to  lose  his  crown  rather  than  acknowl* 
edge  the  independence  of  the  rebels;  he  was  as  much 
opposed  to  that  acknowledgment  in  1783  as  1778 ; 
And  it  was  only  by  a  pressure  from  without,  and 
when  the  expenditures  for  the  war  had  reached  more 
than  a  hundred  millions  of  pounds,  that  a  reluctant 
consent  was  forced  from  that  small,  spiteful  mind. 
Now,  undoubtedly  a  vast  majority  of  the  American 
people  were  unalterably  resolved  on  independence; 
but  they  were  spread  through  thirteen  colonies,  were 
not  without  mutual  jealousies,  and  were  represented 
in  a  Congress  whose  delegated  powers  were  insuf- 
ficient to  prosecute  war  with  vigor.  The  problem 
was,  how  to  combine  the  strength,  allay  the  suspi- 
cions, and  sustain  the  patriotism  of  the  people,  dur- 
ing a  contest  peculiarly  calculated  to  distract  and 
weaken  their  energies.  Washington  solved  this  prob 
lem  by  the  true  geometry  of  indomitable  personal 
character.  He  was  the  soul  of  the  Revolution,  felt 
at  its  centre,  and  felt  through  all  its  parts,  as  a 
uniting,  organizing,  animating  power.  Comprehensive 
as  America  itself,  through  him,  and  through  him 
alone,  could   the  strength  of  America  act.     He  was 


316  WASHINGTON   AND  THE  PEINCIPLE3 

security  in  defeat,  cheer  in  despondency,  light  in 
darkness,  hope  in  despair,  —  the  one  man  in  whom 
all  could  have  confidence,  —  the  one  man  whose  sun- 
like integrity  and  capacity  shot  rays  of  light  and 
heat  through  everything  they  shone  upon.  He  would 
not  stoop  to  thwart  the  machinations  of  envy;  he 
would  not  stoop  to  contradict  the  fictions  and  for- 
geries of  calumny;  and  he  did  not  need  to  do  it. 
Before  the  eflTortless  might  of  his  character,  they 
stole  away,  and  withered,  and  died;  and  through  no 
instrumentality  of  his  did  their  abject  authors  become 
immortal  as  the  maligners  of  Washington. 

To  do  justice  to  Washington's  military  career,  we 
must  consider  that  he  had  to  fuse  the  hardest  indi- 
vidual materials  into  a  mass  of  national  force,  which 
was  to  do  battle,  not  only  with  disciplined  armies, 
but  with  frost,  famine,  and  disease.  Missing  the 
rapid  succession  of  brilliant  engagements  between 
ibrces  almost  equal,  and  the  dramatic  storm  and 
swift  consummation  of  events,  which  European  cam- 
paigns have  made  familiar,  there  are  those  who  see 
in  him  only  a  slow,  sure,  and  patient  commander, 
without  readiness  of  combination  or  energy  of  move- 
ment. But  the  truth  is,  the  quick  eye  of  his  pru- 
dent audacity  seized  occasions  to  deliver  blows  with 
the   prompt   felicity   of  Marlborough    or   Wellington 


OF   THE   REVOLUTION.  317 

He  evinced  no  lack  of  the  highest  energy  and  skill 
when  he  turned  back  the  tide  of  defeat  at  Monmouth, 
or  in  the  combinations  which  preceded  the  siege  of 
Yoriitown,  or  in  the  rapid  and  masterly  movements 
by  which,  at  a  period  when  he  was  considered  ut- 
terly ruined,  he  stooped  suddenly  down  upon  Tren- 
ton, broke  up  all  the  enemy's  posts  on  the  Delaware, 
and  snatched  Philadelphia  from  a  superior  and  victo- 
rious foe.  Again,  some  eulogists  have  caricatured 
him  as  a  passionless,  imperturbable,  "  proper  '*  man ; 
but,  at  the  battle  of  Monmouth,  General  Lee  was 
privileged  to  discover,  that  from  those  firm,  calm 
lips  could  leap  words  hotter  and  more  smiting  than 
the  hot  June  sun  that  smote  down  upon  their  heads. 
Indeed,  Washington's  incessant  and  various  activity 
answered  to  the  strange  complexity  of  his  position, 
as  the  heart  and  brain  of  a  Revolution,  which 
demanded  not  merely  generalship,  but  the  highest 
qualities  of  the  statesman,  the  diplomatist,  and  the 
patriot  As  we  view  him  in  his  long  seven  years' 
struggle  with  the  perilous  difficulties  of  his  situation, 
his  activity  constantly  entangled  in  a  mesh  of  con- 
flicting considerations,  —  with  his  eye  fixed  on  Con- 
gress, on  the  States,  and  on  the  people,  as  well 
as  on  the  enemy,  —  compelled  to  compose  sectional 
quarrels,  to   inspire   faltering   patriotism,   and   to   tri- 


818  WASfflNGTON   AND   TR«  PRINCIPLES 

umph  over  all  the  forces  of  stupidity  and  selfishness, 
—  compelled  to  watch,  and  wait,  and  warn,  and  for- 
bear, and  endure,  as  well  as  to  act,  —  compelled, 
amid  vexations  and  calamities  which  might  have 
stung  the  dullest  sensibilities  into  madness,  to  trans- 
mute the  fire  of  the  fiercest  passion  into  an  element 
of  fortitude;  —  and,  especially,  as  we  view  him  com- 
ing out  of  that  terrible  and  obscure  scene  of  trial 
and  temptation,  without  any  bitterness  in  his  virtue, 
or  hatred  in  his  patriotism,  but  full  of  the  loftiest 
wisdom^  and  serenest  power ;  —  as  we  view  all  this  in 
the  order  of  its  history,  that  placid  face  grows  grad- 
ually sublime,  and  in  its  immortal  repose  looks  rebuke 
to  our  presumptuous  eulogium  of  the  genius  whicl 
breathes  through  it! 

We  all  know  that  towards  the  end  of  the  weary- 
ing struggle,  and  when  his  matchless  moderation  and 
invincible  fortitude  were  about  to  be  crowned  witt 
the  hallowing  glory  which  Liberty  piously  reserver 
for  her  triumphant  saints  and  martyrs,  a  committee 
of  his  ofiicers  proposed  to  make  him  king;  and  we 
sometimes  do  him  the  cruel  injustice  to  say  that  his 
virtue  overcame  the  temptation.  He  was  not  knave 
enough,  or  fool  enough,  to  be  tempted  by  such  crim- 
inal baubles.  What  was  his  view  of  the  proposal  ? 
He,   who    had    never    sought   popularity,   but    whom 


OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  819 

popularity  had  sought,  —  he,  who  had  entered  public 
life,  not  for  the  pleasure  of  exercising  power,  but  for 
the  satisfaction  of  performing  duty,  —  he,  to  be  in- 
sulted and  outraged  by  such  an  estimate  of  his  ser- 
vices, and  such  a  conception  of  his  character! — why, 
it  could  provoke  in  him  nothing  but  an  instantaneous 
burst  of  indignation  and  abhorrence!  —  and,  in  his 
reply,  you  will  find  that  these  emotions  strain  the 
language  of  reproof  beyond  the  stern  courtesy  of 
military  decorum. 

The  war  ended,  and  our  independence  acknowl- 
edged, the  time  came  when  American  liberty,  threat- 
ened by  anarchy,  was  to  be  reorganized  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  As  President  of 
the  Convention  which  framed  the  Constitution,  Wash- 
ington powerfully  contributed  to  its  acceptance  by  the 
States.  The  people  were  uncertain  as  to  the  equity 
of  its  compromise  of  opposing  interests,  and  adjust- 
ment of  clashing  claims.  By  this  eloquent  and 
learned  man  they  were  advised  to  adopt  it ;  by  that 
eloquent  and  learned  man  they  were  advised  to  re- 
ject it;  but  there,  at  the  end  of  the  instrument  itself, 
and  first  among  many  eminent  and  honored  names, 
was  the  bold  and  honest  signature  of  George  Wash- 
ington, a  signature  which  always  carried  with  it  the 
integrity  and  the  influence  of  his  character ;  and  that 


320  WASHINGTON   AND   THE   PRINCIPLES 

was  an  argument  stronger  even  than  any  furnished 
by  Hamilton,  Madison,  and  Jay.  The  Constitution 
was  accepted ;  and  Washington,  whose  fame,  to  use 
Alls  ton's  familiar  metaphor,  was  ever  the  shadow 
cast  by  his  excellence,  was  of  course  unanimously 
elected  President.  This  is  no  place  to  set  forth  the 
glories  of  his  civil  career.  It  is  sufficient  to  say, 
that,  placed  amid  circumstances  where  ignorance,  van- 
ity, or  rashness  would  have  worked  ruinous  mischief 
and  disunion,  he  consolidated  the  government.  One 
little  record  in  his  diary,  just  before  he  entered  upon 
his  office,  is  a  key  to  the  spirit  of  his  administration. 
His  journey  from  Mount  Vernon  to  the  seat  of  gov- 
ernment was  a  triumphal  procession.  At  New  York 
the  air  was  alive  with  that  tumult  of  popular  ap- 
plause, which  has  poisoned  the  integrity  by  intox- 
icating the  pride  of  so  many  eminent  generals  and 
statesmen.  What  was  the  feeling  of  Washington? 
Did  he  have  a  misanthrope's  cynical  contempt  for 
the  people's  honest  tribute  of  gratitude?  Did  he 
have  a  demagogue's  fierce  elation  in  being  the  object 
of  the  people's  boundless  admiration?  No.  His  sen- 
sations, he  tells  us,  were  as  painful  as  they  were 
pleasing.  His  lofty  and  tranquil  mind  thought  of  the 
possible  reverse  of  the  scene  after  all  his  exertions 
to  do  good.     The  streaming  flags,  the  loud  acclama- 


OP   THE   REYOLUnON.  321 

tions,  the  thunder  of  the  cannon,  and  the  shrill  music 
piercing  through  all  other  sounds,  —  these  sent  his 
mind  sadly  forward  to  the  solitude  of  his  closet, 
where,  with  the  tender  and  beautiful  austerity  of  his 
character,  he  was  perhaps  to  sacrifice  the  people's 
favor  for  the  people's  safety,  and  to  employ  every 
granted  power  of  a  Constitution  he  so  perfectly  un 
derstood,  in  preserving  peace,  in  restraining  faction, 
and  in  giving  energy  to  all  those  constitutional  re- 
straints on  popular  passions,  by  which  the  wisdom  of 
to-morrow   rules   the   recklessness   of  to-day. 

In  reviewing  a  life  thus  passed  in  enduring  hard- 
ship and  confronting  peril,  fretted  by  constant  cares 
and  worn  by  incessant  drudgery,  we  are  at  first  sad- 
dened by  the  thought  that  such  heroic  virtue  should 
have  been  purchased  by  the  sacrifice  of  happiness. 
But  we  wrong  Washington  in  bringing  his  enjoy- 
ments to  the  test  of  our  low  standards.  He  has 
everything  for  us  to  venerate,  —  nothing  for  our  com- 
miseration. He  tasted  of  that  joy  which  springs  from 
a  sense  of  great  responsibilities  willingly  incurred, 
and  great  duties  magnanimously  performed.  To  him 
was  given  the  deep  bliss  of  seeing  the  austere  coun- 
tenance of  inexorable  Duty  melt  into  approving 
smiles,  and  to  him  was  realized  the  poet's  rapturous 
vision  of  her  celestial  compensations :  — 

14*  u 


822  WASHINGTON   AND   THE  PRINCIPLES 

"  Stern  Lawgiver!  yet  thou  dost  wear 
The  Godhead's  most  benignant  grace, 
Nor  know  we  anything  so  fair  ■ 

As  is  the  smile  upon  thy  face.*' 

It  has  been  truly  said  that  "men  of  intemperate 
minds  cannot  be  free;  their  passions  forge  their  fet- 
ters " ;  but  no  clank  of  any  chain,  whether  of  avarice 
or  ambition,  gave  the  least  harshness  to  the  move- 
ment of  Washington's  ample  mind.  In  him  America 
has  produced  at  least  one  man,  whose  free  soul  was 
fit  to  be  Liberty's  chosen  home.  As  was  his  indi- 
vidual freedom,  so  should  be  our  national  freedom. 
We  have  seen  all  along,  that  American  liberty,  in 
its  sentiment  and  idea,  is  no  opinionated,  will-strong, 
untamable  passion,  bursting  all  bounds  of  moral  re- 
straint, and  hungering  after  anarchy  and  license,  but 
a  creative  and  beneficent  energy,  organizing  itself  in 
laws,  professions,  trades,  arts,  institutions.  From  its 
extreme  practical  character,  however,  it  is  liable  to 
contract  a  taint  which  has  long  vitiated  English  free- 
dom. To  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind.  Liberty  is  not  apt 
to  be  the  enthusiast's  mountain  nymph,  with  cheeks 
wet  with  morning  dew  and  clear  eyes  that  mirror 
the  heavens,  but  rather  is  she  an  old  dowager  lady, 
£atly  invested  in  commerce  and  manufactures,  and 
peevishly  fearful   that  enthusiasm  will  reduce  her  es- 


OF  THE  REYOLUTION.  823 

tablishment,  and  panics  cut  off  her  dividends.  Now 
the  moment  property  becomes  timid,  agrarianism  be- 
comes bold ;  and  the  industry  which  liberty  has  cre- 
ated, liberty  must  animate,  or  it  will  be  plundered 
by  the  impudent  and  rapacious  idleness  its  slavish 
fears  incite.  Our  political  institutions,  again,  are  but 
the  body  of  which  liberty  is  the  soul ;  their  preser- 
vation depends  on  their  being  continually  inspired  by 
the  light  and  heat  of  the  sentiment  and  idea  whence 
they  sprung;  and  when  we  timorously  suspend,  ac- 
cording to  the  latest  political  fashion,  the  truest  and 
dearest  maxims  of  our  freedom  at  the  call  of  expe- 
diency or  the  threat  of  passion,  —  when  we  convert 
politics  into  a  mere  game  of  interests,  unhallowed  by 
a  single  great  and  unselfish  principle,  —  we  may  be 
sure  that  our  worst  passions  are  busy  "forging  our 
fetters'';  that  we  are  proposing  all  those  intricate 
problems  which  red  republicanism  so  swiftly  solves, 
and  giving  Manifest  Destiny  pertinent  hints  to  shout 
new  anthems  of  atheism  over  victorious  rapine.  The 
liberty  which  our  fathers  planted,  and  for  which  they 
sturdily  contended,  and  under  which  they  grandly 
conquered,  is  a  rational  and  temperate,  but  brave 
and  unyielding  freedom,  the  august  mother  of  insti- 
tutions, the  hardy  nurse  of  enterprise,  the  sworn  ally 
of  justice   and   order;   a   Liberty  that  lifts  her  awful 


324  WASHINGTON   AND   THE  REVOLUTION. 

and  rebuking  face  equally  upon  the  cowards  who 
would  sell,  and  the  braggarts  who  would  pervert,  her 
precious  gifts  of  rights  and  obligations;  and  this  lib- 
erty we  are  solemnly  bound  at  all  hazards  to  pro- 
tect, at  any  sacrifice  to  preserve,  and  by  all  just 
means  to  extend,  against  the  unbridled  excesses  of 
that  ugly  and  brazen  hag,  originally  scorned  and  de- 
tested by  those  who  unwisely  gave  her  infancy  a 
home,  but  who  now,  in  her  enormous  growth  and 
favored  deformity,  reels  with  bloodshot  eyes,  and  di- 
shevelled tresses,  and  words  of  unshamed  slavishness, 
into  halls  where  Liberty  should  sit  throned! 


THE  END. 


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